Kage no Senshi Cycle 1
by SliderDF
Summary: A fascist government organization's botched covert operation sends a boy with a prototype robot into hiding amongst an underground resistance. Based on the best-selling Super Robot Wars video games.
1. Ne Cede Malis


    It is the year 187 by the New Western Calendar.
    Mankind is reeling from a terrible war, which only a late delivery from a distant star could
    stop. Half the population of the solar system was wiped out in a year of unrestricted
    warfare, the crash of an alien spacecraft into the South Pacific, and the low intensity
    skirmishes that followed. As the Earth and her wayward children begin to rearm, looking to
    finish the war, other, darker forces join the battles, looking to impose their will upon the
    earth and the stars. To live in such times is, as one reporter put it, to live in the moment
    before the bullet hits the bone -- knowing that the hammer could fall at any time. If not
    from the armies of humanity's warring factions, then by powers beyond comprehension who
    either wish all mankind under their yoke, or merely wish to destroy.
    For many born to this war-torn future, life is about to change. Watch carefully...
    ***
    Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    presents a Tale of the Super Robot Wars
    written and directed by SliderDF (sliderdf@hotmail.com)
    Story copyright 2002, Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    Kage No Senshi -- Cycle 1: When Your Regular Deus Ex Machina Isn't Cutting It Anymore
    Phase 1: Ne Cede Malis
    ***
    From: jcdenton@mao-ind.com (Jay Denton)
    To: caitlin_denton@heinlein.k12.luna.orb
    Subject: Ship-to-Shore Transmission
    EMS MARATHON
    Luna Two Trade Route
    Wednesday, 7 April 0187
    Dear Cait,
    Sorry I didn't write earlier. Things have been a blur, what with pilot
    school year-end finals and all, and this is the first time in a long time that
    I have to catch my breath and take stock of the whole situation. It all started
    just after the Beginning Combat Tactics practical, which I'd've liked to say I
    aced, but I drew Kazahara for my third bout. I can't say that I busted him up
    (or even won) -- the day I beat both Captain Voorhees and Ilm Kazahara is the
    day I can waltz into Giren Zabi's apartments and rifle through his sock drawer.
    However, you'll be pleased to know I didn't embarass myself out there either.
    I must have impressed somebody, because no sooner than I got back to
    my dorm, I had a message telling me to pack for a couple of weeks, because I
    was going to Side 7. I really can't say much more than that... I could, but
    then I'd have to kill you. ;) Whatever it is, it must be important, because
    the Titans' flagship, Alexandria, rendevoused with our convoy a while back.
    They've since moved on ahead... I'd hate to be the pirate who tries something
    knowing that ship's on patrol!
    Anyway, Yuko sends her regards. She made it through her finals ok too,
    because she's with me aboard Marathon (luck of the draw! :)). Maybe this will
    all wrap up quickly and get us back in town with something left of our
    quarterly breaks for a change. See you soon!
    Love, your cousin,
    Jay
    Jay Denton finished composing his email and sent it. He didn't know how much would
    ultimately be redacted for security reasons, but somehow it didn't really matter. He leaned
    back in his couch as far as it would go and let his mind drift, a smile of rainy-day
    contentment playing over his features.
    "Having fun, Denton?" a deep voice drawled, snapping Jay out of his reverie.
    "Just got finished sending an email to my cousin, Captain," Jay replied, "and just
    thinking about the distances we travel."
    "While you're on the subject of distance," answered Tom Mitchell, captain of the
    Earth Merchant Ship Marathon, "do you have an ETA to Side 7?"
    "Yes sir, I do." Jay had already worked that out before he opened the email program.
    "We should reach Side 7 by 0100 Zulu time."
    "Excellent work," Mitchell acknowledged, taking a sip of his coffee. "Why don't you
    get some sleep? We've still got a couple of hours before we get there."
    "But who--"
    "I'll cover for you until somebody comes up here. Now get moving."
    Jay got up from his seat. "Aye aye, sir." He didn't need to be told twice. Bridge
    duty was not to his liking (he much preferred driving to collecting and reporting data), but
    on a trip such as this, it was a necessary evil. Merchant ship's masters, even in this day
    and age, had little tolerance for those who won't pull their weight. Especially in a ship
    with such a small crew complement as Marathon. Mitchell's regular communications/sensors
    officer had gotten sick and couldn't be replaced on short notice, leaving Jay and Yuko to
    switch off on second watch.
    He was almost halfway to his berth when he bumped into a figure wearing not the
    regular pressure suits of the Marathon crew, but a green and red environmental skinsuit with
    two blued-metal shoulder pauldrons. Jay was wearing one like it himself, but it was colored
    deep blue and silver, and the pauldrons were slightly larger. The skinsuit did things for her
    trim, athletic figure, complementing her natural beauty in ways that made even Jay (who had
    all but four of his eighteen years to acclimate himself to her appearance) briefly forget he
    had the power of speech. She stood a few inches shorter than him, her mousy brown hair cut
    short, with a few wispy bangs that fell from her left to her right across her forehead, with
    a couple of tufts coming a couple centimeters short of obscuring her left eye. Her name was
    Yuko Hashimoto, and she was not only Jay's first love, but also his best friend for as long
    as he could remember.
    "Oi," she said by way of greeting. "The Captain finally parole you from the bridge?"
    Jay scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. "Something like that," he
    replied.
    "That wouldn't have anything to do with me getting paged, would it?"
    Jay piously replied, "I can neither confirm nor deny that."
    Yuko arched an eyebrow. "You forget, the Marathon only has a pilot, a copilot (which
    would be the Captain), an astrogator, a comms/sensor officer whom we already know is not on
    board, and the chief engineer. Helm, astrogation, and comms have personnel stationed on three
    rotating watches. You were on comms last, and I didn't see Ferro or Hudson on the way here.
    QED."
    Jay blinked, amazed at Yuko's logic. In spite of her normally brash temperment, Yuko
    could be rational when she needed to be. He recovered with a crooked smile and said, "Touche.
    At least, he didn't tell me he requested you specifically."
    Yuko grinned impishly, her green eyes twinkling. "I try." She took one of his hands in
    her own as she continued, "I've been thinking about the rest of the break, after we see your
    uncle's family. How about *we* go somewhere? Just us two, for a week or so?"
    Jay looked like he was giving the matter serious thought for all of two seconds. At
    length, his serious mien dissolved into a broad smile. "I'd like that. The way things are
    going now, I'm going to need it."
    "Oh? You like robots, you like to drive, and from I hear, this trip will have both in
    abundance." A thought struck her. "Don't tell me there's trouble in paradise..."
    Jay chuckled. "Nothing like that, Yuko-chan." His face turned sober as he continued, "I
    guess I'm still overwhelmed by it all. Mao Industries entrusting two next-generation Personal
    Troopers to people barely through their first year of pilot training. It's enough to make
    your head spin."
    "Mou!" Yuko planted her fists on her hips. "They wouldn't have given us this task if
    they didn't feel that we were capable of it, Jay-kun. Are you sure going this long without
    sleeping -hasn't- affected your thought processes?"
    Hearing Yuko add the Japanese honorific to his name brought to Jay's mind the fact that
    she didn't look even vaguely Japanese. That was largely due to genetic mixing in the arcology
    life that characterized the bad old days leading up to the Terran diaspora, not to mention
    the early years of the colonies. In these enlightened times, only a handful of old hardline
    racists paid any attention to that. Jay was no exception, letting that bit of trivia slide.
    There were new social stigmas these days, anyway.
    Jay shook his head and smiled that crooked smile of his. "Right now, I'm so wound up, I
    don't -need- a Personal Trooper to travel the stars."
    "Careful what you wish for, flyboy," Yuko said, playfully cuffing his shoulder. Her
    tone grew serious. "One of those PTs could be another Vanishing Trooper."
    The Vanishing Trooper Incident was a staple of PT program legend. Almost two years ago,
    a Huckevine equipped with an experimental engine powered by a primordial black hole (which
    was simply called the Black Hole Engine) seemingly went berserk during a shakedown trial at a
    secret lunar research facility. By the time the smoke cleared, the test pilot was missing a
    hand, the research base had to be abandoned, and the experimental Huckevine was nowhere to be
    found. Only three of the base's skeleton crew of twenty-five survived the Vanishing Trooper
    Incident: Ilmgard "Ilm" Kazahara, acting as an observer/PT technical expert; Dr. Kirk Hamill,
    the researcher in charge of the Black Hole Engine project; and Raidieth F. "Rai" Braunstein,
    the test pilot of the ill-fated Huckevine.
    Jay forced a brave smile. "Yuko, these are Huckevine MkII's. That could never happen
    with the graviton systems. No Personal Trooper's had a Black Hole Engine on it since... you
    know."
    Yuko looked into Jay's eyes, her emerald gaze meeting his cerulean. "I hope you're
    right." She closed her eyes and moved in for a brief but by no means perfunctory kiss. "For
    luck," she said after they had seperated, her fingers ruffling Jay's short, thick, and unruly
    dark brown hair. "The Captain's going to wonder where I was." She stepped back toward the
    corridor leading to the bridge, letting her fingers linger over Jay's own for as long as
    possible. "Ja ne!"
    Jay waved as Yuko turned to leave. Things are defintely looking up, he thought as he
    turned back to his berth.
    He had a dream job, a beautiful girlfriend, and his whole life ahead of him.
    God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world.
    Later, while Jay was reviewing the events of the day, he realized that dreams have a
    bad habit of becoming nightmares when one isn't paying attention.
    As it would turn out, Yuko's tardiness was the furthest thing from Captain Mitchell's
    mind. The designated escort for Convoy LM-23 (of which Marathon was part), the Salamis-class
    cruiser EFC Nightingale, had detected a ship 10 mega-statute kilometers off their port stern.
    Convoy Command had ordered the convoy to start zigzagging and accelerate while Nightingale
    moved to intercept. An old spacer like Tom Mitchell had cause to be worried. With
    Nightingale's intercept and Alexandria yet to return from her vanguard patrol, Convoy LM-23
    -- Marathon and the cargo ships Beautiful Dreamer, Cymbelline, and Titus Andronicus -- was
    vulnerable for a few minutes.
    The captain stroked his Van Dyke beard contemplatively. "Something's not right," he
    grumbled. "They shouldn't be leaving us like this."
    Yuko sat at her station, staring intently at her sensor readouts. A slow beep at her
    console began to pick up speed and pitch, and her quick eyes looked at the flashing new
    entry. No, she thought. It couldn't be! She did the only thing she could do under such
    circumstances.
    "Conn, sensors! Minovsky particle count increasing to combat density!"
    The convoy command officer aboard Nightingale swore. Minovsky particles repelled
    electrically conductive materials, and had replaced chemical-reaction thrusters for use in
    manuevering on all starships produced today. Because of this property, a sufficiently large
    cloud of Minovsky particles could also act as an electronic smokescreen, interfering with
    sensors and targetting computers. Which was why effective gun ranges were still being
    measured in kilometers, despite distances between human settlements measureable in mega
    statute kilometers (MSKs). This many Minovsky particles meant a ship was operating in the
    vicinity, and if the convoy stayed together, they could conceivably be under that ship's guns
    before they knew it was even there. If the ship carried drones or mobile suits, on the other
    hand, scattering wouldn't do much good. About the only thing it would do is buy time.
    The convoy officer did the only thing he could do under such circumstances.
    "Convoy Command to all ships! Scatter immediately! Repeat, scatter immediately!"
    Jay sat on a catwalk with his feet hanging off into the air, looking out at the two
    Huckevine MkIIs while hanging his arms loosely over the railing with headphones in his ears.
    The headphones, in turn, were hooked up to a mini-disc player strapped to his leg. As he had
    predicted earlier, he was too wound up to sleep.
    # Moby "Everloving" _Play_
    Brave talk, Jay, he thought. How do -you- know those graviton systems won't produce a
    second -- or third -- Vanishing Trooper Incident? They haven't been tested, either. Not in
    Huckevines.
    He tabbed a wrist control that loosened his skinsuit so he could reach down into his
    collar and pull out a double-sided photograph holder on a simple metal chain. Yuko's smiling
    face adorned one side, while the other held a copy of the only surviving photo of his
    parents.
    Was all this pent-up energy, he silently asked the faces frozen in time, what you felt
    everytime you flew? Jay's parents were aerospace fighter pilots, killed in the chaotic
    aftermath of what was today known as the Second Impact, a disaster that melted the Antarctic
    icecap; the cause of which nobody could come to a consensus about. Jay didn't have very many
    memories of his parents. He just knew that one day, they had left home on a reserve call-up
    and had never returned. He tucked the photo back into his shirt and tabbed the skinsuit back
    to its snugness. Taking a deep breath, he looked up, his gaze sweeping the two Personal
    Troopers in the cargo hold.
    The Huckevine-series Personal Trooper owed a lot of its stylistic design to the
    original Gundam mobile suit that Amuro Ray used to turn the tide of the One Year War seven
    years ago. Both PTs were a light purple in color, with the main body a darker shade of
    purple. A golden v-shaped crest was perched atop the "helm", and shielded sensor booms swept
    up from both sides of the head. Unlike the Gundam, there was no visible shield on the left
    arm, but a reinforced vambrace with what appeared to be a wheel at the elbow. Twin pods on
    the back gave the appearance of furled butterfly wings. A slight gap in the chest plating
    betrayed the existence of a cockpit hatch.
    That's odd, Jay thought. I could've sworn that cockpit hatch was closed a minute ago...
    An explosion shook the ship, nearly sending Jay falling to the floor of the hold, ten
    meters below him. Hanging on with both of his arms over the railing, he managed to pull
    himself back up and make his way across the now shuddering catwalk over to the panel for the
    ship's intercom. Slapping the button hard, he yelled, "Captain, what's going on up there?"
    Silence greeted his release of the push-to-talk.
    Jay pushed the button again. "Yuko, are you there?"
    Silence. Jay looked over the panel, and with a growing feeling of dread building in his
    stomach, noticed that the power light, let alone the activity light, was not lit.
    The intercom's out, Jay thought.
    "Conn, tactical!" cried Nightingale's tactical officer. "I'm reading multiple inbound
    contacts coming after the freighters!"
    "What?!" responded Nightingale's captain. "Can you identify?"
    "Unknown at this time."
    "Conn, message coming in from the Cymbelline!" shouted the comms officer. "Her drives
    have been destroyed!"
    "Dammit," growled the tac-off. "We just lost Andronicus!" He plied his console
    frantically. "I'm getting better returns on those contacts, and they appear to be mobile
    suits. In fact, IFF shows them to be--"
    "Inconclusive," an icy baritone voice replied as its owner stood next to the sensor
    station. He was average-looking, with neatly combed brown hair, a high forehead, and a thick,
    well-groomed mustache. "Those are aerospace fighters. Belonging to a well-known pirate
    organization." He never raised his voice as he pulled a leather wallet out of his black and
    red uniform blouse.
    "And I," said Jamican Dannigan, operations officer of the Titans, as he showed his bona
    fides to the flustered officer, "was never here." Raising his voice for the first time since
    he came on board, he stated, "This ship is now under Titans authority!"
    Marathon bucked again from another hit. The lights in the cargo hold began to flicker,
    and Jay was beginning to think that this would most likely be the way his life would end. He
    looked back toward the PTs, and the one with the ajar cockpit hatch began to open wider, as
    if to invite him in.
    To his dying day, Jay could not explain how or why the chain of events in Marathon's
    cargo hold came to pass, only that it had. He ran full speed toward the waiting Huckevine
    MkII, somehow -knowing- that if he could reach it, then everything would be all right.
    Sparks flew from damaged electrical relays as he ran across the catwalk and jumped in,
    securing the pull-down shoulder straps to the catches in his skinsuit's pauldrons and pulling
    on the helmet he found just above the pilot's seat with a speed that would have surprised him
    if he was viewing this as an observer. He tapped the internal power button and was rewarded
    with two things: the system status lights turning on, and the vibrations of the engine coming
    back to life, much like a computer that had been placed in hibernate and was now being
    reactivated.
    A smooth female contralto voice began to speak: "Reactor online, sensors online, all
    systems nominal." Jay ignored her voice and found the communications controls. Punching a few
    buttons, he made out Yuko's voice: "--any Fed--ration shi-- able to respond, this is the
    -rth ----- --ghter Marathon, under attack by unknown mobile suits. Hull integr-- failing, can
    anyon--"
    Another explosion rocked Marathon, blowing pieces of the cargo hold's walls in for a
    split-second before it was sucked out into space, along with the atmosphere and everything
    not nailed down.
    "Damage report!" barked Tom Mitchell.
    "Auxillary nav computer is out," said navigator Micah Coltrane as he read out the
    litany of harm, "drive output at 85% and dropping, main cargo hold open to space!"
    Mitchell sighed long and explosively. "Jettison the cargo. Hashimoto, bring up the
    emergency destruct program for the packages."
    Yuko turned to face him as the ship shuddered some more. "But sir--"
    "No buts. The rest of you get the hell out of here, get to the escape pods. Go!"
    Most of the crew ran off the bridge. The computer's voice sounded the abandon-ship as
    Mitchell got up to go to the comm/sensor station.
    "What are you waiting for, Hashimoto? Get outta here! That's an order!"
    "I'm not leaving without you!"
    "Yuko," said the captain, using her first name for the first time, "I've already lost
    the Marathon. There's nothing I can do to change that. But I'll be God-damned if I go down in
    history as the man who lost a cargo of overtech mecha to raiders." The digust in his voice
    made his feelings abundantly clear. Yuko got out of her seat as Mitchell bent over her
    station and punched in a complicated code on the numeric keypad placed there.
    Jay had had worse days. He just had trouble thinking of one as his Huckevine MkII was
    spinning out of control, sucked out by the cargo hold's breaching. He was frantically tugging
    the joysticks, trying to level out of the spin, and failing miserably.
    "For God's sake," he grunted, "how can I get out of this spin?"
    The female voice of the computer spoke up again. "Are you the designated pilot of this
    Personal Trooper?"
    Jay took a breath with a hiss, his teeth gritted against the sudden lurching as he
    struggled to get the PT under control. "I guess I am now..."
    "Initializing second level man-machine interface. Neural induction to commence in 3...
    2..."
    "Neural induction?" Jay exclaimed with an edge of panic in his voice. He didn't like
    the way this was going at all.
    "1..."
    "Wa--"
    Everything turned white.
    "Transmitting destruct codes now," stated the voice of Marathon's computer.
    Far from the wounded freighter, an explosion lit the void of space.
    "Package 1 destroyed," muttered Mitchell, before an electronic raspberry answered him.
    "Damn! Package 2 is refusing the destruct codes! Just gotta retransmit, that's all."
    Then Tom Mitchell looked up through his bridge klaster, at the scarlet mobile suit
    filling it. A techno-samurai, training a most un-samurai-like beam rifle at the windows.
    And realized he wouldn't get the chance.
    "Get in my pod! NOW!"
    He shoved Yuko into the waiting escape pod door and closed it just as the world outside
    the window turned yellow.
    And then Tom Mitchell never saw anything again.
    "Marathon just went off the screen," reported Nightingale's tactical officer.
    The captain bit short a muttered curse. "Range to target?" he asked mechanically.
    "4 MSKs. Captain, aspect change in target, he's flying away from us and the convoy.
    Should we continue pursuit?"
    "Affirmative," answered Jamican before the captain could. "Maintain course and speed."
    "Sir," the captain asked, "with your permission, I'd like to leave a sensor buoy here,
    so we may go pick up any survivors of the convoy."
    "Captain," replied Jamican, "have you considered the possibility that your sensor buoy
    may be destroyed, or that the target may double back around it?"
    "No, but if we chase this ship any longer, we might not have anybody left -to- rescue."
    The comm officer broke in with, "Message from the Dreamer. She's got fires on multiple
    decks."
    After a drawn-out pause, Jamican said, "The convoy scattered toward Side 7. Any
    survivors will be picked up by the Alexandria. Continue on original course and speed."
    "Yes, sir," the captain growled. Something stunk around here, and it wasn't in the
    ventilation system.
    # Dave Matthews Band "The Space Between" _Everyday_
    It was a grey overcast day at the cemetery. An oddly fitting day for then four-year-old
    Jay Denton to say goodbye to the parents he never knew fully and would never get the chance
    to. Standing there in his Sunday best, one of his hands enveloped by his uncle Morgan, before
    the mausoleum spaces he knew contained the ashes of his parents. His cousin Patrick was being
    escorted by his aunt Ceilidh, herself already six months pregnant with his other cousin
    Caitlin.
    As the party stood outside the mausoleum, his aunt and uncle talking with others who
    had made the funeral, a girl in a black bib-overall dress with light brown hair in a pixie
    cut and soulful green eyes detached herself from her mother and walked over to the boy about
    her age in the suit with fresh tear-tracks on his face. She held out a daisy toward him.
    Jay looked out at the girl with a "For me?" expression on his young face.
    The girl nodded.
    Jay reached out to take the flower...
    The girl said, "My name's Yuko. What's yours?"
    The scene faded to white again.
    Jay was sitting in a locker room, bent over with his elbows on his knees, staring at
    the floor. It was after the Lunar High School Robot Clash, and the team from Robert Heinlein
    High School in Copernicus Dome had just been beaten in the finals. He didn't know whether to
    break down crying, smash everything in the room, or both. A female voice broke him from his
    reverie: "Excuse me, but are you Jason Denton?"
    He looked up, half-mumbling "Jay, please."
    And found himself looking at a blonde in her late twenties dressed in a business suit,
    colored in the most eye-destroying shade of puce imaginable. "Hi. Julie Reeves. My card." She
    shook Jay's hand with her right while handing him a card with her left that identified her as
    Vice President of Lunar Operations for Mao Industries.
    "What do I owe this honor, Ms. Reeves?"
    "Jay, I'll get right to the point. We want you to come join our pilot training
    program."
    "But I didn't win the race. My team didn't win the all-around. Why would you pick from
    a second-place team?"
    "I could say that Anaheim Electronics already has their hands on the winners of this
    event, but that's beside the point. My point is that your performance out there was some of
    the best piloting I've ever seen, right to the point where you got put into the crevasse."
    Her voice lowered to a conspiratoral whisper. "(I was involved in one of the Federation's
    early exo-technology projects during the One Year War, so I know about piloting.)" Her voice
    rose back into its normal range as she said, "And still you managed to climb out and finish
    second. A lot of people would have just waited for the tow-hopper, but you didn't. And that
    took guts."
    "But I've still got a year of high school left to go."
    "We can arrange a cooperative education agreement with your school. There's no risk; if
    you decide it's not right for you, you can leave and go back to finish out your education
    there. But I think you can hack it. You've already got the reflexes, the instincts, and the
    spirit needed. All that's missing is merely the opportunity to show what you can do in the
    Real World.
    "So, are you interested?"
    Jay started to nod as the tableau faded into white.
    They were in the auditorium commons of Heinlein High for a special graduation ceremony
    for cooperative education students. Today, only two were being honored, and they were seated
    in a place of honor in front of the stage, facing it. Jay looked at Yuko, turned out in her
    formal dress uniform of school blazer, dress shirt, neckerchief, pleated skirt, and knee high
    socks and smiled warmly. She smiled back at him with the same warmth. At the front podium,
    the principal had just finished with his remarks and started calling the roll.
    "Hashimoto Yuko," he said, using the ancient Japanese custom and giving the surname
    first.
    She stood up with a clearly spoken "Hai!" and walked over to the stage to collect her
    diploma, waving to her other friends and family as she walked back to her seat.
    "Jason Charles Denton."
    Jay stood up. "Here, sir."
    The scene faded to white as he started his trip to the stage.
    Jay and Yuko had decided to spend their last night on the moon outside the domes,
    gazing up at the Earth that would be their home throughout the Mao Industries pilot training
    program. They were reclining against a craterside, with Yuko nestled in the crook between
    Jay's arm and his body, with her head on his shoulder. At length, Yuko threw her arm around
    Jay's middle and moved her hand up his side. She touched her helmet to his and said, "We are
    bonded now, you and I."
    Jay looked at Yuko with a start. He certainly didn't remember her ever saying that to
    him. Their bond was much more implicit and better understood than that, he was sure. And
    that's when it hit him.
    He was dreaming!
    Jay's eyes snapped open, focusing and allowing him to take in his surroundings.
    Somehow, during that dream sequence, he had managed to stop the Huckevine's spin and level
    out. But his attention was firmly on the last thing he'd ever thought he'd see in a PT
    cockpit.
    She was slender and slightly translucent, sitting on Jay's knees with hers at his hips,
    even though he felt no weight on his legs. She was also quite beautiful, although hers was
    more of a hard, angular beauty. Her skin was a light purple, and her short-cropped hair was
    the same color. The only feature of her face that wasn't purple were her eyes, which were a
    deep blue. She was dressed in the most unusual skinsuit Jay had ever seen; black with no
    shoulder pauldrons, with luminescent light panels in her color strategically placed all over
    the suit in a pattern resembling circuitry, as if Eiji of Macross had designed her skinsuit
    himself. For a brief second, Jay thought he could see little 0's and 1's move through the
    black portions of the skinsuit much like blood through arteries and veins. She also seemed to
    -glow- from within, looking for all the world like the personification of a program from an
    ancient vid about programs in a computer trying to throw off the yoke of a tyrannical master
    control program.
    (Under different circumstances, Jay would have found the thought of such a creature
    sitting on his lap very... stimulating, but not now.)
    "Well," she said with a crooked smile and the same smooth contralto he'd heard when he
    first boarded. "Your brain hasn't turned to runny tapioca pudding and oozed out of your ears
    yet. I'd say we got a good match." She paused, lost in thought for a second. "High amounts of
    cerebral cortex activity, that's good. You're definitely not the typical CHOOH-head,
    overgrown-frat-boy blowhard fighter jock I was expecting."
    Jay blinked rapidly. "Who are you," he asked, "and how did you get here?"
    "My name's Cortana. I'm the onboard AI assigned to this Huckevine MkII, but I'm getting
    ahead of myself. I first became operational at the Tesla Reich Advanced Artifical
    Intelligence Laboratories in Colorado Springs, Colorado on May 25, 0186. I was created by Dr.
    Catherine Halsey, who based her work on the late Dr. Naoko Akagi's research in advanced
    neural net processing--"
    "All right, all right!" Jay snapped. "Can you get me back to the Marathon?"
    "There's no need to snap at me," Cortana replied, her color darkening slightly.
    "Anyhow, that's only something I wish I could do. You see, I'm resident in the Level 2
    interface, which is also why only you can see my icon right now. I can only point you toward
    your destination, but you're the one that's gotta get us there."
    "Close enough." Jay tried to bring up a radar screen on his HUD. "Uh, Cortana, can you
    -- oh how can I say this? -- not take up so much space? I can barely make out my HUD."
    "Sure thing." She flickered like a CRT resizing its resolution. "How's this?" she
    asked, sitting Indian-style a centimeter above his right knee, not more than six inches high.
    "Great, thank you." A worried frown creased Jay's forehead. "I'm not seeing the
    Marathon anywhere on the scopes. Could we be getting interference?"
    "The Minovsky particle count's still high," Cortana replied. "It's quite poss-- heads
    up! I've got 5 mobile suits inbound. One's a Gaplant, the rest are Marasais."
    A window in the upper left hand corner of Jay's HUD opened, showing a stylized eagle in
    profile facing to the dexter on a circular red field. Jay recognized that icon -- it belonged
    to the Titans, one of two elite organizations charged with keeping the peace in human space.
    "Thank God you guys are here," said Jay. "I was wondering when the cavalry would show up."
    A gaunt, drawn face behind a pressure helmet appeared in the window. "Unknown pilot," a
    gravelly voice imperiously demanded, "shut down your PT and prepare to disembark."
    "Say again?" Jay asked. "There's no other ships in the vicinity."
    "Shut down your PT and prepare to disembark. I gave you an order."
    [Jay,] said Cortana, her voice urgently echoing inside his mind, [watch your back. I
    don't trust him!]
    Jay's eyes widened. [How is it that you can talk to me like this?] he asked.
    [It's part of the Level 2 interface. We can communicate directly through the neural
    induction link. To any observers, it just looks like you're sitting there silently.]
    [Right... I'll have to remember that.] To the pilot in his comm window, he asked,
    "Shouldn't you be chasing down the raiders instead of shaking down a civilian pilot?"
    "That," spat the Titans pilot, "is none of your concern."
    "Why would you give a -civilian- pilot an order that would certainly lead to his death?
    Answer that for me, if you please," replied the unknown pilot over the channel, and Titans
    Lieutenant Yazan Gable had had all he was going to take from this little shit. He growled
    back, "If you are not out of your PT in the next 15 seconds, we are authorized to use lethal
    force to get you out of it. This is your first and -only- warning. Do you copy?"
    Cutting the transmission to the stupefied civilian, he then changed to his squad
    channel. "On my signal, break formation and open fire."
    Best to let him stew in his own juice for a bit.
    The tactical officer aboard Nightingale noticed a brief waver on his scopes. Not much
    of a jump, but enough of one to get his attention. If memory served, it was right around the
    last known position of the Marathon...
    "Range to target," asked the captain.
    "2500 meters," replied the tactical officer, all thoughts of the sensor flutter
    forgotten. "We're in visual range now."
    "On my viewer."
    The captain's viewer showed that the ship they had spent the past five minutes chasing
    was broad with a largish observation deck. The comm officer was also radioing the vessel
    while this was going on, and the reply came back immediately:
    "Nightingale, this is the independent passenger liner Orbital Princess, en route to
    Earth from Side 7. We're on our way back from a cruise."
    The captain looked over at Jamican, who looked back at him impassively. "I hope this
    trip was necessary," the captain said, his voice projecting a dead calm he himself did not
    feel. "Number One, you have the conn."
    "One word before you go, Captain," Jamican said. "And this goes for everyone on this
    ship. The events of today have been classified Compartmentalized. There -is- no Convoy LM-23.
    There never -was- a Convoy LM-23. You are not to discuss the events of this day, even amongst
    yourselves. Any violation of this directive will be punished with the full weight and rigor
    of the Official Secrets Act, the Federation Defense Act, -and- the Universal Code of Military
    Justice.
    "That is all. I'll brief the rest of the ship's company later."
    The captain then slowly got up out of his command chair, retired to the private head in
    his quarters, and cursed for two minutes straight.
    [Any ideas?] Jay asked.
    [Hold on to something,] Cortana replied, lip-synching as her words were broadcast into
    Jay's mind. [This will feel a little weird.]
    Colored images of systemry blurred behind Jay's closed eyes as he straightened bolt
    upright in his seat. After about two seconds of this, his eyes snapped back open and he took
    a deep, ragged breath.
    [There,] Cortana sent as she smiled serenely like a techno-Buddha. [You now know kung
    fu.]
    Jay turned a half-lidded gimlet stare on Cortana's icon, still sitting cross-legged
    "on" his knee.
    She took her hands off her knees and placed them in front of her ankles. [You've just
    had the advanced training course for the Huckevine MkII Personal Trooper flashed directly
    into your memory,] she replied woodenly.
    [Hokay... if you were in my shoes, what would you do?]
    [Find a defensible position. They didn't load the drivers for the weapons systems,
    ostensibly for 'safety during transport'. Idiots.] Cortana grimaced as if she'd swallowed
    something sour and bitter. [I can load them, it's just going to take some time.] Her icon
    began to grow brighter as the flow of bits through it quickened.
    The comm window displayed the Titans' icon again. "Time's up, buddy," growled the
    Titan. "What's it going to be?"
    "Well," Jay replied, "since you put it that way, I say come and take it."
    "It's a little late to grow some balls to go with that mouth, -spacenoid-. Now
    somebody's going to have to teach you some manners. Break and attack! Keep the damage to a
    minimum, men. I don't want my new toy more banged up than it's gotta be." And with that, the
    comm window closed.
    The four Marasais peeled off and burned straight for the Huckevine.
    "There's a colony cylinder under construction 900 meters away," Cortana said, over the
    internal speakers as well as in Jay's mind. Jay burned toward the half-finished cylinder,
    taking out the mini-disc in his player as soon as he pointed the PT in that direction. As Jay
    reached over to slot the mini-disc in the Huckevine's player, he noticed a small process
    window open in the HUD:
    cortana% init Emergency Defense Protocol Alpha
    Password: ne cede malis
    Hearing the question in Jay's mind before he could voice it, Cortana answered, "It's
    Latin. It means 'do not yield to misfortune'."
    "Oh."
    "Combat protocols finished loading," Cortana noted, providing a running commentary of
    the Huckevine's revival. "Designating Marasais as Cancer wing, Gaplant as Scorpio One.
    Weapons coming online, now." In response to that last item, a weapons window opened in the
    lower right hand corner of the HUD:
    VULCAN 2000
    LIGHT SWORD
    SUBACH PR-7 10
    CHAKRAM SHOOTER
    The Subach PR-7 (Photon Rifle, type 7) Jay knew to be Subach-Innes's latest specialty
    mecha-scale energy rifle, following on the heels of the NPC-9 (Neutron Particle Cannon, type
    9). In the wake of various advanced mecha-beasts incorporating radiation absorbing materials
    into their cybernetics, which allowed them to heal when hit by conventional beam rifles, the
    Earth Federation turned to Subach-Innes to produce energy rifles capable of bypassing said
    materials. Their first effort, the NPC-9, was originally packaged with the Personal Trooper
    that put Mao Industries on the map: the PTX-001 Geshpenst. However, a switch had been made to
    conventional beam rifles as a cost saving measure, although a few Geshpensts still carried
    the NPC-9. When the call came for weapons that would not be absorbed, Subach-Innes retooled a
    few of its assembly lines to produce NPC-9s again. With the defeat of this mecha-beast army,
    the demand for NPC-9s diminished.
    (Jay noted, not for the first time, that Cortana's research was nothing if not
    thorough.)
    Jay did, however, notice something else. "Cortana," he asked, "why is the Chakram
    Shooter grayed out?"
    "It just needs longer to charge than the other weapons systems," was her reply. "Ready
    to go when you are."
    Jay selected the Subach and bracketed an oncoming Marasai that was just about to bring
    its beam rifle to bear.
    [They're coming in Black Ninja style, one at a time,] Cortana noted, with more than a
    touch of glee. [They have NO idea who they're messing with.]
    Just then, a beam streaked past the Huckevine's right shoulder from Jay's four o'clock
    high, impaling the approaching Marasai just under the left shoulder and flensing armor away
    with a hiss of smoke and sparks. The internal structure under the shoulder joint grew molten
    under the hellish kiss of the beam and snapped off, sending the Marasai's left arm flying
    into space, spoiling the pilot's aim enough so that the return shot scored only a piece of
    hull plating on the cylinder.
    "Cortana, is somebody behind us?" Jay asked.
    "Yes, but they're not locked on to us," she answered.
    The comm window in Jay's HUD opened again, this time with a rotating design of planets
    around a sun with what looked like an eye opening, using the sun for its iris. A different
    face, wearing a hot pink and maroon pressure suit, soon replaced it.
    "Attention Personal Trooper," the man said in a deep voice. "Looks like you've got
    yourself in some trouble."
    Jay ducked the Huckevine behind a section of cylinder wall to get a peek at his would
    be rescuers. Three mobile suits of an unknown design, two dark grey, one bright scarlet, took
    up positions in the cylinder. The "UNIDENTIFIED" under the target identification screen
    pulsed rapidly for a second before vanishing in favor of "Rick Dias". The color of the
    brackets around them was the blue indicating neutral parties.
    "More mobile suits!" Jay exclaimed. "How do I know you won't stab -me- in the back
    after these jokers are all gone?"
    Pink-and-Maroon replied, "You'll just have to trust me on that. Besides, if I'd wanted
    you dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
    "What do you mean by that?" Jay asked, more than a little flustered. Of all the things
    that could happen, being sought by parties on both sides of the law took the cake. At least
    that's what he figured, since that comm icon matched no Federation unit flash that he knew
    of.
    "There'll be time enough for that later, after the coast is clear. Right now, keep your
    eyes open, watch your hull integrity, and we might just get out of this one alive. Roberto!
    Apolli! Keep their heads down! I don't want to lose this kid!"
    [I think I recognize that voice,] Cortana sent. [But he's supposed to be dead...]
    "What?" asked Jay. "Who's supposed to be dead?"
    [Never mind that now. Let's see if we can help them out first. The enemy of my
    enemy...]
    [Doesn't appear to be anyone I'd want seeing my cousin Caitlin,] Jay answered back as
    he toggled the shuffle on the mini-disc player and pressed play.
    # Bad Religion "You've Got A Chance" _The New America_
    Jay had lost track of the damaged Marasai, but there was another Marasai within range
    of his Subach. He dropped the targetting reticle on the Marasai and pulled the trigger,
    catching the mecha high in the right chest with a bright amethyst beam, tearing a hole clean
    through it. Plasma poured from the cracked drive casing like blood through a sucking chest
    wound. The other pilot proved himself game by firing back, wildly missing the Huckevine MkII
    with a yellow beam. "You've got to do better than that!" Jay yelled.
    "Jay, bogey above us!" Cortana shouted as the one-armed Marasai fired its beam rifle
    between its legs with its only remaining arm, out of reach of most of the Rick Dias' guns.
    The yellow beam left a starburst-shaped scorch mark on the Huckevine's left shoulder
    pauldron, and a brief wisp of smoke from what little armor plating was vaporized.
    Other than that, the Huckevine MkII was completely unharmed.
    One of the grey Rick Diases took a shot at the high-flying Marasai, which the Titan
    dodged easily. Unfortunately for him, the shot wasn't intended to hit the Titan, but to drive
    him.
    Right into the waiting gunsights of the rest of the squad.
    To his credit, the Titan managed to dodge two other yellow beams before being impaled
    upon an amethyst beam. The Marasai stayed impaled on that beam for a split-second, hanging
    suspended in time. For Jay Denton, it seemed that time had slowed to a crawl -- he could see
    everything in stark, crystal-clear detail. The HUD graphics stood out with razor-sharp
    intensity, and he could make out little things like the HUD counting down the Subach's ammo
    meter from 9 to 8 and the white-hot edges of the hole where his shot was boring through the
    Marasai, its after-image already starting to fade away.
    Then time picked up its regular remorseless cadence as the Marasai's reactor shielding
    gave way, consuming the war machine in its own uncontrolled fusion reaction. Jay watched the
    Titan pilot die with his own widened eyes.
    Please, God, he thought, tell me I didn't just kill a man.
    "Jay?" Cortana asked.
    He just sat there, taking ragged breaths.
    "C'mon, Jay, now's not the time to space out on me!"
    The man in the scarlet Rick Dias had been in this situation before. Seven years ago, in
    another life. Except that time, he distinctly remembered having to fight -against- the
    seemingly invincible prototype. Seeing the Titans having to deal with that tactical problem
    was easily the most amusing thing he had seen all year. Already he could see that the second
    shot from the other Marasai was more on-target, but was stopped short by a an energy field
    that flared brightly for a second as the bolt impacted, but faded back to invisibility.
    All that, he thought, and an I-Field too?
    He had gone by many names in the past. He had been born Cassval Zum Daikun. Today, he
    was Quattro Bajina. But the name by which he was best known was that of the Red Comet, Char
    Aznable. Top ace of the Principality of Zeon during the One Year War, and inspiration to
    scores of imitators.
    At this very moment, he was once again the Red Comet. And he was looking for a workout.
    He brought his sights on the Marasai that had just shot the Personal Trooper. It was an easy
    target, flying straight and level. They really should've come as one formation and exploited
    their superior numbers rather than breaking formation and coming in single file. As it was,
    well...
    He had wanted a workout.
    This didn't even qualify as exercise.
    "I'm telling you, sir," Nathan Campbell's voice said over the radio, "it's the Red
    Comet--" Static assaulted Yazan's ears as a brief flare in the distance signalled the doom of
    Campbell's Marasai. And beyond that, in the half-finished colony cylinder, he could see a red
    mobile suit. Yazan's eyes narrowed and his lip curled away from his teeth in a rictus grin.
    This would be a welcome challenge. He redlined his engine, sending the Gaplant toward the
    seething firefight.
    "My wing, ignore the red mobile suit," he said. "That bastard's mine."
    "What the hell was that?" Jay asked.
    "That," answered Cortana dryly, "was a Gravity Wall. And it saved your life! Now get
    your head back into this! You got Cancer Three coming in hot, and the Chakram Shooter's ready
    to go."
    True to Cortana's word, the third Marasai was coming in on Jay's position, thrusters in
    full burn, waving a beam saber. Jay pressed the weapon selector switch, highlighting the
    Chakram Shooter. "Here's why you don't bring a knife to a gunfight!" he shouted. "Chakram
    Shooter, go!"
    The Huckevine's left arm shot forward as if to deliver a punch, but the vambrace on the
    arm opened, letting the wheel on the left elbow shoot out on its own momentum, much like a
    mecha-scale yo-yo. The weapon began to reveal twin cutting heads mounted along the diameter,
    and those spun up a split-second after launch. The projectile sailed unerringly on a path
    right for the body of the Marasai, and the Titan's scream of rage changed to one of fear as
    it cut a deep furrow right up the middle of his mech. Debris streamed from the wound as the
    Marasai was knocked back, and Jay reeled the chakram back in by the cable attached to it. The
    Marasai exploded a second later.
    "Cancer Three is down!" Cortana cried. "One more!"
    The fourth Marasai had merely advanced while the third one had charged in, and was
    readying its beam rifle. Again the chakram flew forth, neatly amputating the Marasai's weapon
    arm at the elbow on the initial pass, and boring through the back, severing such important
    systems as the power coupling and the head on the return trip. Three yellow beams crashed
    into the Marasai at roughly the same time, one on each side of its chest and the third in the
    right leg. The corpse of the mech, electricity arcing from its destroyed power systems,
    drifted away lifeless.
    "Scorpio One's coming in fast," Cortana said. "He's tracking us, but he's locked on to
    the red mech. He must be looking to make a name for himself."
    He came to help me, Jay thought as he locked on to the Gaplant and waited for his
    opening to strike. The least I can do is help him.
    Yazan failed to notice this, so intent was he on his target. Smiling with a grim
    ferocity, his grin got wider as the beep-beep-beep of his targetting reticle took on a steady
    tone. "Rats," he growled, "are meant to die!"
    He squeezed the trigger that fired one of the heavy beam guns built into his Gaplant's
    oversized vambraces. A wide yellow beam shot forth, clawing towards the red Rick Dias.
    However, the Rick Dias saw the shot coming in, moving away from it with near-superhuman
    agility. The beam went on past the scarlet mech, melting away a half-finished section of
    framework on the colony cylinder. The Rick Dias drew a bazooka and trained it on Yazan's
    Gaplant. "Sloppy," said its pilot over the radio as he returned fire, catching the Gaplant
    low in the right side.
    "I don't fucking believe this!" muttered Yazan. That shot should've sent him to Hell!
    "It couldn't have been the Red Comet! No goddamned way!"
    "Bet you wish you'd gone after the raiders now," sang the voice of the kid.
    Yazan snorted. "Are you really that fuckin' naive? Who do you think the 'raiders' were,
    anyway?"
    Jay's eyes widened.
    I couldn't have possibly heard that right.
    [He's right,] Cortana sent grimly. [While we were spinning out of control, I tracked
    those suits as they strafed the Marathon.]
    [Why?] Jay asked in response.
    [I think we both know the answer to that one.]
    "You'd murder innocents just to get this Personal Trooper?" Jay asked plaintively over
    the intercom.
    "NO FUCKING SHIT!" Yazan replied. "News flash, cherry -- it's what soldiers are paid to
    do: kill people!"
    "You're not soldiers," Jay growled. "You're goddamned BUTCHERS!"
    The Huckevine MkII took off at full thrust, heading straight for the Gaplant, left arm
    cocked back, the chakram spinning in its holster. The Gaplant turned to face this new target,
    raising its own left arm and bringing the beam cannon to bear.
    Jay took a deep breath and screamed, "I WON'T FORGIVE THIS!"
    The left arm shot forward, once again sending the chakram on its deadly path.
    Which came within less than a meter away from the Gaplant's head, just wide to its
    right.
    "Ha!" Yazan shouted. "After all that, you missed!"
    Jay stared straight ahead, breathing for a couple of heartbeats.
    Then he smiled.
    A crooked smile.
    Then the ear-splitting din of damage alarms resounded through Yazan's cockpit.
    The chakram had wound itself around the Gaplant, coming around under the outstretched
    left arm before rising back up to lodge itself into the right side of the robot's neck. It
    was the cutting damage to that area that triggered the damage alarms.
    Jay guided the Huckevine's left arm up and over, taking the cable in its hand before
    giving a sharp tug, digging the chakram deep into the guts of the Gaplant. Within seconds,
    the mech had been cut in half, the upper left torso along with the head and left arm flying
    off into space. Small explosions wracked the remaining half of the Gaplant as it spun away
    from its severed parts.
    "ARRRRGGGHH!" yelled Yazan. "Impossible! How could I have *lost*?" His hands groped
    wildly for the eject lever. "This isn't over, pipsqueak!"
    Then the hatch shot away from the mortally wounded Gaplant, followed by the pilot
    floating out, inflating an emergency survival bubble as he drifted away.
    Jay retracted the chakram's cable and turned back toward the cylinder.
    Behind the Huckevine MkII, a bright corona lit the eternal night as the self-destruct
    charge on the Gaplant destroyed what was left of it.
    [You could have finished him off,] Cortana noted. [Why didn't you?]
    [What's he going to do,] he replied, [get out and throw rocks at us? Besides, I don't
    want to kill anyone if I don't have to. Even if they are sadistic scum.]
    [Ah. I can't complain about the results, though.] Jay could detect a hint of amused
    pride in Cortana's voice.
    The rotating solar system icon appeared once again in the comm window. "Not bad, kid,"
    Pink-and-Maroon said. "Need a lift?"
    "Why not?" Jay asked, without a hint of rancor in his voice. "I got nowhere else to
    go." A shadow briefly played across his face for half a second.
    "All right, fall in behind us and we'll escort you to the carrier."
    As the mechs hurtled away from the scene towards whatever ship they called home, Jay
    was in a pensive mood.
    "Look at it this way," Cortana said as her icon appeared on his leg once again. "You
    kept this Huckevine MkII out of the hands of the Titans and made it out alive. That's all
    anyone can really ask for in this situation."
    "Thanks," Jay replied. "Couldn't have done it without you."
    She smiled, her voice carrying a tone of dry, mischevous humor. "I know. And you're
    welcome." Seeing no change in Jay's expression, she continued, "Besides, can you imagine what
    would happen if I had to work -with- that barbarian?" She gave an exaggerated shudder. "I'd
    sooner run a 16-bit command interpreter."
    "What about the graviton system?"
    She stood up and put both hands leisurely on her hips. "Given what we've just been
    through, I'd say we can call that a successful test."
    Far away, amidst the wreck of the EMS Marathon, nobody noticed a white stag beetle-like
    drone begin to pick its way through the debris, as if looking for something.
    # Queensryche "Revolution Calling" _Operation: Mindcrime_
    TO BE CONTINUED...
    Acknowlegements
    ---------------
    To Banpresto, for making one hell of an anime crossover game.
    To all the anime production houses that contributed to Super Robot Wars... neither the game
    nor this fic would have been possible without you.
    To Zhou Tai An and Mark Neidengard, for making the incomprehensible comprehensible.
    To Rurounin Mao and Ryoga316 from the SRWG Message Board, for inspiring this old fanfic
    myrmidon to get back on the horse and represent for the real robot contingent.
    To my prereaders, including the incomparable Jan Michael Aldeguer, for their valued
    assistance in making my words make sense.
    I also added (or will be adding) my own embellishments from other works I particularly enjoy:
    The FREESPACE series and RED FACTION by Volition Inc.
    STARLANCER by Digital Anvil
    The MARATHON series and HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED by Bungie Studios
    DEUS EX by Ion Storm
    INTRON DEPOT by Masamune Shirow
    SCUD: THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN by Rob Schrab
    SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (TV)
    THE MATRIX (movie)
    CYBERPUNK 2.0.2.0. and MEKTON ZETA by R. Taslorian Games
    HEAVY GEAR and JOVIAN CHRONICLES by Dream Pod 9
    The RENEGADE LEGION series, originally by FASA Corporation
    Capt. Jack Voorhees and Julie Reeves come from a short-lived Mekton Z PBEM that I was a part
    of several years ago. Julie was created by Chris Meadows, and the creator of Jack went by the
    name Mechaman. Others from that series will make their appearances in future chapters.
    If anybody sold you a hardcopy of this work, they ripped you off. I'm not writing this fic
    for monetary gain (it's freely available and distributable as long as the credits and
    disclaimer remain intact), nor to challenge the copyrights on enough characters, likenesses,
    and indicia to fill a major metropolitan area. Besides, I'm just this guy struggling to make
    ends meet, you know?
    OMAKE: THINGS THEY WOULDN'T LET US DO -- "SUPER ROBOT WARS ZERO"
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    In NWC 187, war was beginning...
    Marathon shuddered as another direct hit wracked the massive freighter.
    "What happen?" barked Captain Tom Mitchell.
    Micah Coltrane replied from his navigation station, "Somebody set up us the bomb!"
    "We get signal," Yuko Hashimoto interjected from her station.
    "What?!" asked Mitchell.
    Yuko said, "Main screen turn on."
    A view of a cockpit came into being on the screen, with a pressure-suited man with a
    gaunt face leering at them.
    "It's you!" Mitchell cried.
    Yazan Gable cackled. "How are you gentlemen!" he asked at length. Yuko glared at him
    with a look that could melt titanium, but said nothing.
    "All your base are belong to us," Yazan gloated. "You are on the way to destruction."
    Mitchell stood up out of his chair. He shouted, "What you say?!"
    "You have no chance to survive," Yazan said as he took his Gaplant on a slow, swooping
    turn, preparing to make his run on the freighter. "Make your time. HA HA HA HA ...."
    Tom Mitchell sank back into his chair, a look of despair washing over his face. At
    length, he said, "Take off every Huckevine."
    Mitchell's viewer showed Jay Denton running toward the waiting Huckevine MkII. "You
    know what you doing," Mitchell intoned softly.
    "Move Huckevine... for great justice."
    "CUT!" bellowed the director, and as if on cue, everybody on set broke. When everybody
    finally settled down from laughing, the director said, "That was the funniest thing I have
    seen in a while. Now let us never speak of it again."
    "You think they'll let us put that in the movie?" asked a crewperson.
    "Hell no."
    "Do we save the footage?"
    "Hell yes."
    Jay Denton will return in "The Kid With The Broken Halo"


	2. The Kid With The Broken Halo


    SEVERAL YEARS EARLIER...
    "Everything's been finalized. You leave for Earth within the week."
    "Understood. I do, however, see a problem with the recent end to hostilities. People are
    going to want to forget about war for a while."
    "It won't last. This war of theirs didn't end decisively. There will be people on both sides
    who will want to finish the war once and for all. Besides, conflict is in these beings'
    nature. And even if this Dr. Zoldark manages to unite them under one purpose, it will hardly
    matter. Between the aspirations of the Kyouryu and the Youma, the ancient gender wars of the
    Zentraedi and Meltrandi, and the remorseless advance of the STMC, settlements will burn, the
    dead will pile up in the streets, governments will fall, and anarchy will reign. In the end,
    they'll beg us to save them."
    "What about the Principality of Zeon? The Zabis will most certainly rearm since most of their
    cold war restraint died with Archduke Degin Zabi. The eldest son, Giren, is both aggressive
    and dangerous. He's already expanded the fortifications at A'bao'a'qu, only a month after the
    Atalia Treaty was signed. And then there's the Neo-Zeon faction, led by Majarajah Khan and
    his daughter Haman, and they make Giren Zabi look like Ghandi."
    "A family of pretentious fools playing at running the human sphere, when most of the human
    sphere has already passed them by. Let them plot and scheme. In the end, their fate will be
    no different than the rest."
    "There's also another matter to consider: their technical and scientific expertise. They
    might unravel the secrets of the dreadnought."
    "Yes. Which is why there can be no deviation from the timetable. Even if there is, our
    technological base is far superior to theirs. And their top researchers are, shall we say,
    ethically inflexible. So much so, that we have the latitude to pursue avenues of research
    they wouldn't even consider."
    "Like your Psychodriver project?"
    "Among other things. Speaking of which, I expect a preliminary report on the sample pool for
    the project as soon as possible. We have been through much, you and I, but soon a new age
    will dawn. Once, the Balmar Empire was the brightest beacon in the galaxy. It will be again."
    "And we are to be the new rulers?"
    "You still think too small. 'Rulers' is too limiting of a term. I prefer 'gods'."
    ***
    Since the start of the 17th Century
    There's been the scent of unseasoned wood, burning in the air
    And the conquest of nature meant nothing at all
    While we betray exception, we take all that's there
    But motives are translucent in the reflection of shame
    The actions ghostly remnants of our ancestral ways
    And unwittingly you just take your place in this parade
    The voracious march of godliness makes us all the same anyway
    All the same...
    Since the dawn of our human family
    There's been concentrated sepsis, blowing in the breeze
    And we turned on each other with ferocity
    Desperation, forced without reprieve
    But the missions were misguided and the trammelled led astray
    The air resounds with thunder as the victor seized the day
    And the haunting voice of history lives ignored but not betrayed
    The voracious march of godliness will get us close to Heaven one day
    Some day...
    The voracious march of godliness, the voracious march of godliness
    The voracious march of godliness, the voracious march of godliness
    The voracious march of godliness, the voracious march of godliness
    The voracious march of godliness makes us all the same anyway
    All the same...
    -- Bad Religion "The Voracious March Of Godliness" _No Substance_
    Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    presents a Tale of the Super Robot Wars
    written and directed by SliderDF (sliderdf@hotmail.com)
    Story copyright 2002, Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    Kage No Senshi -- Cycle 1: When Your Regular Deus Ex Machina Isn't Cutting It Anymore
    Phase 2: The Kid With The Broken Halo
    ***
    The ship, thought Jay Denton as his Huckevine MkII approached it, was magnificent.
    It was thermocoated white, with both its catapults flanking a raised central section
    that boasted a centerline main cannon on the prow below a proud flying bridge. The rear
    thruster nacelles, big and blocky, were split wide on the rear of the ship. Two blocks with
    two ports each, the purpose of which Jay could not discern at first glance, sat behind each
    catapult. The ship fairly bristled with weapons.
    "Looks like you guys are ready for anything that comes your way," Jay radioed.
    "We like to think so," Pink-and-Maroon answered with a hint of a smile. "There she is,
    the Ahgama. We're about to enter her holding pattern now."
    [Something that big and that heavily armed couldn't have been built by a civilian
    yard,] Cortana, the AI onboard Jay's Huckevine MkII observed, her words echoing in Jay's
    mind. [It might be a captured warship, or it might have been built in secret. I'll know more
    when we get aboard.]
    [There's something I've been meaning to ask you,] Jay replied as his eyes drank in
    every detail on the Ahgama. [How did this particular PT get an AI assigned to it?]
    [You've only ever piloted mass-production PTs before, haven't you?]
    [Trainers, mostly. Until today.]
    [Close enough. Anyway, AIs in experimental mecha are not uncommon. In prototype
    Personal Troopers, they monitor the systems on the PT, assist in target identification, and
    prioritize damaged systems for repair by the damage control subsystem. Both the original
    RTX-008 Huckevine and the SRG-001 Grungast had AIs, as well as the six units of the Defender
    project way back in '78. Primitive by today's standards, but the Defender AIs stood as
    precursors for what was to come.
    [AIs on newer prototypes were scheduled to be phased out altogether -- in fact, the
    R-Series Personal Troopers were designed without onboard AIs -- but in the wake of the
    Vanishing Trooper Incident, an extra level of safety was deemed necessary. At the very least,
    in the Huckevine-class...]
    Cortana would have said more, but was interrupted by the aeroboss. "Personal Trooper,
    you are clear to land. Be advised, the Captain would like to speak with you on landing."
    "Roger that," Jay replied. "Ready for ALS interlock when you are."
    [So,] Cortana summed up, [Here I am, and here we are. Engaging automated landing
    system... now.]
    The Huckevine MkII gracefully alighted on the deck inside the hangar's lower level,
    which from all appearances was reserved for recovery of launched mecha. Jay walked his
    Huckevine over to a berth that a deck chief waved him toward and backed in. The first thought
    that occured to Jay upon docking was that there were no armed guards waiting to escort him to
    whatever fate awaited him. Just the one man, in the hot pink and maroon pressure suit.
    The second thought that occured to Jay upon docking was that he never imagined he'd be
    in the same room with a Federation Senator. At least, a former Federation senator. But here
    he was, in the wardroom of the Ahgama, with no less a personage than Brex Forra. The
    architect of the liberation of Zeon-occupied Earth during the One Year War (and later interim
    Chief Of Staff after the entire Earth High Command had perished outside A'bao'a'qu), he had
    retired with two stars on his flag to pursue a career in politics, and quickly made a name
    for himself as an advocate of colonist's rights. The last Jay had heard of him, he had
    declined to seek reelection to the Senate in protest against the Extension to the Federation
    Defense Act which had passed in 0183, creating both the Titans and the Specials.
    And yet he sat at the head of the wardroom table, poring over a document, looking a lot
    like a blond department-store Santa (without the moustache, and with a better-trimmed beard)
    double-checking his "naughty" and "nice" lists.
    Some people have odd ideas on how to spend their retirement, Jay thought.
    "They should be securing the Personal Trooper for transport as we speak," Quattro
    Bajina (or at least that was the name Pink-and-Maroon gave Jay) said as he walked back to the
    table from the intercom panel on the wall, having slipped on a pair of sunglasses shortly
    after landing and lifting off his pressure suit's helmet.
    "Very well," Henken Beckner, the tall, burly captain of the Ahgama, acknowledged from
    his seat at Forra's right hand.
    Brex looked up. "Ah, Major," he said to Quattro by way of greeting. "I suppose this
    young man must be the pilot," he said, indicating the brown-haired lad at the foot of the
    table with a wave of his hand. Jay had noted that the rank badge on Quattro's collar was that
    of a Federation field captain, but knew enough to know that only one man on a ship was called
    "Captain".
    "Yes sir," Quattro replied. "I must admit that in all the excitement, I didn't catch
    his name."
    "Jason Denton, sir," Jay said with the hint of a blush, "mecha pilot for Mao
    Industries, late of the merchant freighter Marathon, at your service."
    Brex nodded, the corners of his mouth curling up into a warm smile. "Of course you are.
    Come, sit."
    "So what kind of Personal Trooper was that, anyway?" asked Henken as he scratched his
    head.
    "A Huckevine MkII," answered Jay as he sat. "It's an advanced prototype."
    "Huckevine, Huckevine... didn't one of those tear up that moon base a while back?"
    Quattro answered for Jay. "Yes, the Vanishing Trooper Incident. It made most of the
    screamsheets, as I recall."
    "The Huckevine-class does incorporate many instances of extra-overtechnology," Brex
    mused. Extra-overtechnology, or EOT for short, was a blanket term used to describe the
    bleeding-edge breakthroughs accomplished in the wake of the One Year War, most notably in
    gravitic power and propulsion. "But we are forgetting ourselves. Captain Beckner, if you
    would make berthing arrangements for our guest... Jason, is it?"
    "Jay, please."
    Henken nodded. "Consider it done," he said as he got up to page a yeoman.
    "It just doesn't make any sense," Jay noted at some length. "Why would the Titans
    attack a convoy just for one Personal Trooper? If they're supposed to be a government agency,
    why couldn't have they just requisitioned it when we docked at Side 7?"
    "The Titans," Brex said, "were supposed to be Earth's best soldiers. Empowered to
    prevent another war by any means necessary. And why not, what with the Zeon forces at Axis
    suddenly styling themselves the Neo-Zeon, and Aiguille Delaz's fleet still fighting the One
    Year War, since they never recognized the Atalia Treaty. Both are threats to the stability of
    the human sphere, and the hawks in the Senate felt that a permanent ready-reaction force in
    the vein of the old Thirteenth Independent Legion would be the best-equipped to deal with
    those threats. At least that was the theory."
    "However," Henken said as he towered over the back of his chair, "in practice, a better
    description would be 'empowered to do whatever they like'. They're dedicated to the
    eradication of Zeon, as well as anybody who would threaten the order they strive to create.
    Their membership is predominantly earthnoid and Earth supremacist, and their commander runs
    them like they were his own personal army."
    "Because effectively," a female voice said from behind Jay, "that is what they are."
    Jay turned around to regard an elegant woman in a green pressure suit with yellow trim, a
    couple of inches shorter than him, with short flame-red hair and blue eyes. "You must be the
    PT pilot. Reccoa Rondo." She extended a hand, which Jay shook.
    "Make no mistake, Jay," Brex intoned, drawing his attention back to the discussion, if
    only reluctantly. "The Titans are about one thing: control. Control over human space, control
    over the justice system, even control over thought itself if they could manage it. Thank God
    when you say your prayers tonight that they haven't figured that one out yet.
    "Which brings us back to your situation. I'm sure you're aware of how valuable a prize
    overtech mecha would be. Somebody would have had to have leaked information on your convoy to
    the Titans. And since Lynn Mao doesn't sell to the Titans, they couldn't have requisitioned
    it without a legitimate emergency."
    "And if you go after just one ship of a convoy," Henken added, "everyone will know that
    you knew what you were after. The attack on the entire convoy itself was doubtlessly a
    smoke-screen. It just looks like commerce raiding -- which the Titans would step in and put
    down, of course -- and nobody would be the wiser."
    "The Titans may be about control, as you say," Jay replied, "but from the looks of it,
    -they're- the ones out of control."
    "Exactly," replied Henken grimly.
    "I had heard stories about them, but I figured those to be misinformation. After all,
    'honest citizens have nothing to fear from the Titans,' right?"
    Brex nodded sagely. "'In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't
    speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up
    because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because
    I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I
    wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak
    up.' Martin Niemoller, a man who lived on Earth during what the old calendar called the
    Twentieth Century, said that. In those days, that country was in the grip of a brutal
    repressive regime, obsessed with racial and ideological purity. The repression led to
    imprisonment, which then became genocide."
    "Some of us have no intention of repeating that mistake," Henken said.
    "In fact," Brex said, warming to his subject, "some of us have already begun to take
    action. The Ahgama is the flagship of the Anti-Earth Union Group, or AEUG."
    "Our mission is simple," Quattro said. "We exist to oppose the Titans' oppression of
    the colonies. We stand for peace with honor, not the peace of the gun."
    "Which when you get down to it," Brex added, "is what any old soldier, no matter what
    side he fought on during the war, wants. Unfortunately, those hawks in Dakar don't see it
    that way. It's time somebody made them face reality."
    "Why this?" Jay asked. "You were a Senator once, sir. You could have served as a
    moderating voice in the Senate."
    "I believe an ancient Roman said it best: 'Let he who desires peace prepare for war'.
    The human sphere is in the midst of an arms race right now, Jay. Even the Titans are in on
    it. And if you've read the reports about 30 Bunch, you'd know as well as I do that the time
    for diplomacy is over."
    Jay's eyes widened. 30 Bunch was the latest scandal, involving an anti-Earth
    demonstration that had put down with nerve gas. "It's all true?"
    Brex nodded slowly. "We could use people like you in the days to come. I can't make
    that decision for you, but we need all the help we can get."
    "And if I say no?"
    "We can drop you off via shuttle when we reach our destination," Henken answered. "Of
    course, no one is to know of what you saw here today."
    "You don't have to give us an answer right away," Quattro said. "When you reach your
    decision, at least one of us will be aboard at all times."
    "Until then," Brex said as he stood up, "you are our guest aboard this ship."
    Henken punched the intercom button. "Mr. Torres, set course for Green Noah 2."
    The intercom answered, "Aye aye, sir."
    "We'll be on the bridge if you need us," Brex said as he walked toward the door.
    "There's just something I need to ask you," Jay said, a worried expression creasing his
    face as he stood. He swallowed. "Did anybody else from the Marathon get out all right?"
    "I just came from the wreck," said Reccoa. "I couldn't tell if anyone got out. They
    shot the escape pods as they launched." She stopped as she saw the brown-haired boy's brave
    facade begin to crumble. "Jay, I'm sorry."
    # Moby "Everything Is Wrong" _Everything Is Wrong_
    "I-I-It's all right," Jay said before he turned back toward the wardroom table. It
    wouldn't have done to break down into tears in front of war heroes, after all. He waited
    until everybody had left before dropping into the chair at the foot of the table and weeping.
    Dammit, I tried... I just wasn't fast enough!
    He decompressed his skinsuit and took out the photograph holder, studying it with
    blurred eyes.
    At least I sent you a side party to escort you to wherever it is you're going.
    If there's any justice in this world, they'd probably get turned away at the gate,
    anyway.
    He put his head back down on his arms, trying to wall off the bitter reality of the
    wreckage his life had become.
    Oh, Yuko, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...
    Astonage Medosso vaulted his lanky, pressure-suited frame into the cockpit of the
    Huckevine MkII. 720-degree VirtuaCockpit, he noted. Quite the step up from the older screen
    style. "Ok," he said as his fingers flew over the keypad on the center console, "let's see
    what you got." System diagnostics appeared on the VDU just above the keypad. "Hmmm, Subach
    energy rifle. Classy..." More tapping. "Most of the readouts look like the Geshpenst
    MkII's... all right, let's see you move." He punched the fine motor control key down, and got
    an electronic blat sound for his troubles. "That's strange." He tried again. Another blat.
    The computer voice (female, of course, to cater to the old men who make procurement
    decisions) spoke, "Level 2 interface needed to test fine motor control." Astonage tapped a
    few more keys. "What's this? A brainwave reader?" He looked around. "Built into the helmet,
    which the pilot took with him..."
    He opened a cargo pocket in his pressure suit and pulled out a headband with wires
    leading out of it, along with several plug adapters. You never know when a simsense 'trode
    band will come in handy, he thought as he pulled it over his shock of light brown hair and
    hooked it up. Settling the trode band across his forehead, he touched the "L2I CONNECT TEST"
    key...
    And found himself in pitch blackness. He could see himself if he looked down, but he
    couldn't make out any detail of the cockpit at all. He looked back up and found himself
    staring at a female figure in purple and black with her arms folded across her chest, her
    blue eyes narrowing as she gave him the eyeball.
    "You're not supposed to be here," she said flatly.
    And as quickly as the tableau had came, it was gone, leaving Astonage to rip the trode
    band off his head with one hand and massage his forehead with his other. Fighting down a wave
    of vertigo and nausea, he dimly recalled reading about a phenomenon not unlike this one for a
    college paper about pre-orbital era computing. What was it called? Dump shock? Yes, that had
    to be it.
    He was still fighting to keep his dinner down, resolving to take a look at the runcode
    image on the Personal Trooper's computer systems when he heard one of his crew. "Boss," the
    crewman said, "the bridge's been calling. They need the Major's MS ready to go ASAP. You ok?"
    "I'm fine," Astonage replied. "Tell them I'll get right on it." He unhooked the 'trode
    band and looked under the seat of the PT, moving the survival equipment case out of the way.
    Just as he thought, there was a panel where he hadn't expected one to be. About the right
    size, he figured, for housing an EOT AI core crystal, with carrier.
    Curiouser and curiouser...
    Jay wandered back on the bridge half an hour later. Henken looked down from his conn
    chair. "What is it, Jay?" he asked.
    "What's at Green Noah 2?" Jay asked.
    "The Titans have a well-established presence at that colony. We believe they also have
    a base there."
    "Are you sure you should be telling him this?" Quattro asked Henken, indicating Jay
    with a nod of his head.
    "Of course. He's got a right to know at least that much. You'd better get ready."
    "I am ready. I'm just waiting on them to finish rearming and refuelling."
    "What's this all about?" Jay asked.
    "Oh, Quattro's gonna head down to Green Noah 2 and have a look around," Henken replied.
    "The Ahgama's going to hang back outside the beacon perimeter in case the Titans try
    something."
    "Jay," Quattro said, "this ship is about to go to battle stations soon. For your own
    safety, I urge you to leave the bridge."
    Jay could barely believe it. Here he was, feeling like a fifth wheel after less than a
    couple of hours aboard Ahgama. Still, it was their ship, and they had been at this a lot
    longer than he had. Besides, he hadn't fully committed to this AEUG that Forra spoke of. He
    turned to walk back to his berth, and the photograph holder under his skinsuit shifted. It
    was like somebody had mentally tapped him on the shoulder.
    He could see the last conversation he had with Yuko, all played out in his mind's eye
    -- everything from running into her in the corridor to her last kiss to the brushing of his
    fingers as she left for the bridge that last time. He saw it all, and knew he would never
    experience that feeling again, never get the chance to tell her that he loved her. His hands
    subconsciously tightened into fists as he thought about those responsible for that chain of
    circumstance.
    He just didn't care anymore. All that was left was to revenge himself on whoever did
    this to him.
    "Quattro," said Jay as he turned back toward the bridge, only to find the towheaded
    officer looking over a map at a bridge station. He tried again, a little louder this time.
    "Major!"
    That got his attention. Jay could make out a little diagonal scar on the major's
    forehead, just above the bridge of the nose. "There's a perfectly good Huckevine that you
    could bring along."
    "That's very generous of you, but I don't believe I know how to pilot it, and this is
    only a recon mission."
    "Take me with you."
    "Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into? A recon mission is quite
    different from a full frontal assault."
    "I know that! I just want a chance to strike back at them, that's all."
    "You'll get your chance, I can assure you of that. But not right now. Right now, you're
    thinking too much like a jilted lover instead of a soldier. And if I take anybody along with
    me, they have to be capable of thinking objectively. Especially given the nature of this
    mission."
    The retort died in Jay's throat. How did he--? Never mind how. Jay knew if he took that
    bait, he'd only confirm that he deserved to stay on the ship. He turned to Brex. "A
    Huckevine-class PT would make a few Titans think twice about attacking the Major."
    Quattro turned to Brex. "General, I always recon alone. You know that."
    Brex regarded Jay with an even gaze. "You really want to go on this mission?"
    "You're damn right I do. The Titans killed my girl all because they wanted to get their
    grubby hands on some overtech. Well, the only thing they've got is my attention. And I want
    to show them how bad an idea that was. Just say the word. I won't let you down."
    Brex turned to look at Henken, who replied, "He's gotta learn somehow."
    Quattro sighed softly, conceding the point. "Very well. This would be a good training
    mission anyway. Jay, get your helmet and meet me in the hangar in five minutes. We're going
    to Green Noah 2."
    "Aye aye, sir!"
    Both pilots left the bridge as Henken chuckled and got up out of his chair to stand by
    the front bridge window. "The Major always seems like he has a lot on his mind, doesn't he?"
    "Um-hmmm," Brex replied as he followed the captain. "You sound like you know him a lot
    longer than he's been with us."
    "Only by reputation. You've heard the legends about the Red Comet, right? How he
    destroyed five Salamis-class cruisers in a single engagement while driving a Zaku?" Henken
    paused. "I commanded one of the Salamis refits -- the Roanoke -- towards the end of the One
    Year War. Didn't see much action as we advanced on A'bao'a'qu, but I had heard reports of
    that Zeong mobile armor the Zeeks were rumored to be testing there. Didn't get to see that
    one, either. But as we approached, somehow I -knew- the Red Comet was the pilot. I could just
    feel his power, even from so far away. And I still feel that power even now."
    "Oh? From whom?"
    "The Major. Quattro Bajina."
    "I see," Brex mused. "Still trying to deliver the true message of Zeon Zum Daikun to us
    spacenoids..."
    "I thought the Zabi family ruled Zeon," offered Torres.
    "Well, they do," Henken responded. "But Zeon Daikun was prime minister of the Side 3
    Republics long before Degin Zabi assumed power and created the Principality of Zeon.
    Consensus reports state that old Degin had something to do with Daikun's death back in '68.
    The Zabis always claimed it was Federation propaganda, but then again, the first rule in the
    Principality is that the truth is whatever the Zabis say it is."
    "And what the Titans fail to realize," Brex intoned, "is that they're following in the
    Zabis' footsteps."
    Another daycycle began on Green Noah 2, much like any other in any of the hundreds of
    O'Neill-style colony cylinders that dotted Earth's orbit. People went about the routines of
    their daily lives -- work, school, and the like -- but for one boy running down the paths of
    his high school campus, this day would be anything but routine.
    He was short for a boy of his age, with dark blue hair that fell around his intense
    face in a style resembling a football helmet. He was dressed like a respectable young person,
    with a tasteful blue sweater with green sleeves worn over a yellow shirt. Dark blue slacks
    completed the ensemble. He rounded the corner onto the sidewalk coming down from the stairs,
    never slackening his pace.
    "Camille!" a soprano voice called out, its owner trotting up alongside the running boy,
    her long black hair trailing behind her. She was wearing a red sleeveless cardigan over a
    yellow turtleneck sweater, with black shorts and knee-high yellow socks. Her name was Fa
    Yuri. "Camille! What are you doing?"
    The boy spared her a brief glance and kept on running. "I'm playing hooky," he
    answered. "What does it look like I'm doing?"
    "Camille!"
    "Don't say that," Camille replied. "Keep calling me that and soon everybody's gonna
    know that name!"
    "Everybody already does," Fa answered. "The only person that's not cool with that name
    is you." She saved her breath for running as they crossed over to the parking lot on the
    other side of the school. Without breaking his stride, Camille reached under his sweater and
    pulled out the passcard that would activate one of the cars lined up in the carport. He slid
    it through on the run and vaulted into the driver's seat, slotting the card into the reader
    located above the ignition keypad. Fa hopped in, landing in the passenger's seat.
    "You're going to the port authority again, aren't you?" she asked after they had gotten
    into the car.
    "Is there anything wrong with that?" Camille answered, keying in the car's ignition
    code.
    "If you keep missing your club activities, there is!" Any further protest on Fa's part
    ended in a squeak as Camille pulled out of the carport and got on the thoroughfare to the
    monorail station leading to the port authority.
    Jay was surprised that the initialization for the Level 2 interface had taken less time
    than it did the first time. All he saw was a swirling tunnel of color for a second, and there
    was Cortana, sitting on his lap. "Took you long enough," she said.
    "So I've been busy," Jay responded. "And how come I didn't see my life flash before my
    eyes again?"
    Cortana stood up. "That phenomenon has been reported to happen during initial
    calibration of the L2 interface. What you saw just now, you can expect every time you start
    up the Huckevine MkII from now on."
    "Oh-k," Jay said as he looked at the scarlet Rick Dias. Quattro was carrying a folded
    jetpack device with him. "Cortana, do we have a homoavis on board? My skinsuit can't accept
    the homoavises they have."
    Cortana closed her eyes as she put a hand to her forehead in thought. Her eyes opened
    after a couple of seconds. "We do, but it's stored in an outer compartment. You'd have to get
    out to get it."
    The AEUG's rotating solar system icon appeared in the comm window before crew chief
    Astonage Medosso's pressure-helmed face replaced it. "You're all charged up, Jay. You're
    cleared to depart on Cat 2."
    "Roger that, I'm on my way." He walked the Personal Trooper over to the elevator
    serving the launch catapults and waited for it to raise itself to the level of the outer deck
    hatch. Walking out of the hatch, he found the launcher sled and locked the Huckevine's feet
    into the spaces indicated for them. The mech looked to any observers like a ski jumper
    preparing to make a run. A light bar began counting down, much like a drag strip's, and soon
    Jay and his Huckevine MkII were spaceborne.
    Camille chewed a thumbnail in nervous anticipation. Couldn't this monorail car get
    moving any faster?
    "Honestly, Camille," said Fa, irritated. "Can't you do anything about that habit of
    yours? It's disgusting!"
    Camille looked out the window. "Sheesh," he muttered.
    At length, the monorail car rolled through the airlock, and ran down the length of the
    colony cylinder. Camille never got tired of looking out into space. It looked so pristine,
    unspoiled. Of course, it wasn't really, but the junkers had done a fine job of clearing up
    the space junk in this part of space.
    Out there, he thought, that's where my future is.
    Finally, Camille said, "You're right, about the club thing... it's just that the White
    Base is scheduled to arrive today and I don't want to miss it as it comes in."
    "You ever get tired of seeing that ship?" Fa asked.
    "It may not be the original White Base, but it's as close to it as we'll get. A piece
    of history, the original was. The Thirteenth Independent Legion was based from it throughout
    the One Year War. The Zeons spent countless marks and men trying to bring it down, but they
    never could get it done until A'bao'a'qu, and by then, their backs were to the wall. I even
    got Captain Bright's autograph the last time he was here."
    Fa rolled her eyes behind Camille's back as they set off towards the terminals.
    Meanwhile, in one of the terminals in the port authority, a different sort of reception
    was well underway. A few Titans were already in the terminal, having an informal welcome for
    one of their own.
    "There," said Kirkricon Cacooler, a stocky, balding fellow with slicked-back brown hair
    concealed by a red peaked cap. "Now you look like a proper Titan. Welcome aboard."
    "Camille!" a soprano voice said, and the person Kirkricon was addressing looked back
    toward the zero-g transfer zone. He was tall and rangy, dressed in the Titans' black and red
    uniform with his blond hair in a pompadour and narrow blue eyes. He was Jerrid Messa, and he
    had just recently been selected for the Titans.
    "Camille," said the girl who had just arrived to her companion, "They're probably not
    going to let you see him."
    "Hmm," Jerrid softly mused. "A girl's name..." He sighed. "Oh well, too bad it's only
    some guy."
    Fa was too busy looking at the assembled Titans and the MPs that were evenly spaced out
    over the military reception terminal, but if she had been looking at Camille, she would have
    seen his light blue eyes focused on infinity. As it stood, the only hint she got that
    something was amiss came in the form of Camille's yellow school binder hitting the floor and
    his shoulders tensing.
    For Camille, although he was clear across the terminal, could hear Jerrid as clearly as
    if he had been standing right next to him. He clenched his fists and began slowly advancing
    on the Titans.
    # Limp Bizkit "Break Stuff" _Significant Other_
    "Friend of yours?" Jerrid asked Kirkricon.
    "Umm-umm," replied Kirkricon, shaking his head.
    By then, Camille had already crossed the terminal to stand at the transfer zone for
    arrivals from ship. "Don't insult me!" he barked, fixing Jerrid upon his gaze. And with that,
    he vaulted the turnstile, using the extra inertia he had in microgravity to spring forward
    and drop Jerrid to the deck with a left to the chin.
    Camille sprung back, but pushed off too hard with his legs, sending him flying across
    the transfer zone to trip over the turnstile and land on his back. He crawled back under the
    turnstile as two other Titans stood in front of their downed comrade. "Do you realize you
    just assaulted an officer?" one of them asked.
    "He started it!" Camille shouted back. "What's so wrong about a boy having a name like
    'Camille'? I'm a MAN, dammit!"
    The first of the Titans rushed in with a right cross that Camille neatly sidestepped
    and turned into a throw, sending him flying over the turnstile into the terminal. This also
    had the side effect of leaving him open to the second's punch, which tagged him across the
    jaw. Camille spun with the punch, barely bringing his arms up to block the next two punches
    from the Titan before lifting him off the deck with a series of body blows. Here's where the
    martial arts club meetings I did show for pay off, he thought.
    Unfortunately, throwing the first Titan into the terminal alerted the MPs that there
    was a fight brewing, and between the Titans still in it and the MPs, Camille had no chance at
    all. He was quickly subdued and held to the floor by a MP and one of the Titans.
    "Camille!" Fa shouted, ready to rush to his aid, but a MP cut her off. "I'm sorry,
    miss," he said, "but this is a restricted area."
    By then, Jerrid had already managed to stand up and make his way over to the restrained
    youth. "Has anyone ever told you there are things you can say and things you shouldn't?" he
    asked, struggling against his captors.
    "So you're Camille," Jerrid said, lifting up Camille's head gently with his boot. "What
    was it I said to piss you off?"
    "For starters, you don't EVER say 'oh well, too bad it's just some guy' to another
    guy!"
    "Oh, I get it," Jerrid said. "You're a man, right?"
    Camille glowered and nodded, or at least as much as he could with the MP having a
    double handful of his hair.
    "Then I suppose I should treat you like one!" And with that, Jerrid launched a kick
    straight into Camille's face, right between his eyes. There was hardly any place for
    Camille's head to go, what with it being held by the MP. Consciousness quickly abandoned him.
    One of the Titans who had helped Jerrid to his feet, a Lieutenant Emma Sheen, shot
    Jerrid a dirty look. "Was that really necessary, Lieutenant?" she asked.
    "You saw what he did," Jerrid retorted. "Now we're running late for the Gundam MkII
    trials."
    Emma held the look on Jerrid for a few seconds, but said nothing more.
    "Get him out of here," Kirkricon said to the MP, gesturing at Camille's unconscious
    form.
    As the Titans left, Emma looked back at the girl being kept back from the impromptu
    arrest, and her heart went out to her. But there was little she could do.
    Quattro's Rick Dias held up its right hand clenched into a fist as he stopped in the
    middle of a service passage. Then the Rick Dias knelt. Jay walked the Huckevine MkII over and
    placed a hand on its shoulder. Quattro had ordered strict radio silence for this part of the
    mission, but communication like this could not be jammed or intercepted by the enemy.
    Presently, Quattro's face appeared on Jay's comm window. "We walk from here," he said.
    By the time Jay finished dropping his Huckevine into a crouch, Quattro had already shut
    down, strapped on his homoavis, and had hovered up to the cockpit hatch. "Do you have a
    sidearm?" he asked when Jay opened the cockpit.
    "Didn't think I'd be needing one when I packed," Jay answered.
    "Check your survival kit. Most milspec survival kits have an emergency sidearm."
    Jay undid the catches on his shoulder pauldrons and lap belt and crouched down next to
    his seat, finding the equipment case. He unlatched the case and opened it. A card fell out,
    but that paled in comparison to what Jay's eyes beheld. "Hippy l'chayim, brother trucker," he
    breathed reverently as he took out the pistol in both hands.
    The original Seburo CX was a product of the bad old days before the colonies,
    reintroduced for the chaotic times of today that had led up to the One Year War. In its time,
    it was the last word in fully-automatic machine pistols, holding thirty rounds of 5.7mm FN
    ammunition and capable of emptying its clip in less than 2 seconds. It had a bullpup
    configuration, and was easily manageable, reliable, and concealable. About the only obstacle
    it had to widespread use was the price. No government or security agency operating on a level
    larger than that of a major city could afford to adopt a Seburo design for their main battle
    rifle, let alone a machine pistol. The CX-R version that lay in Jay's hands included a
    three-round burst setting. He ejected the banana clip that extended all the way to the grip
    of the weapon. Subsonic rounds, of course. Regular supersonic rounds would punch through a
    ship's hull or a colony cylinder.
    Jay picked up the card from where it had fallen and read it. Handwritten on it was the
    following:
    I'm proud of you!
    -- Uncle Morgan
    They must have told him about this trip of mine, Jay thought, and had him include it to
    surprise me. Not that I mind the surprise or the gift, but would he still be proud if he knew
    what I was using this for?
    "A Seburo?" Quattro asked, jolting Jay out of his reverie.
    "My uncle Morgan's idea of personal protection," Jay said, reinserting the magazine and
    pulling the holster and spare clip out of the kit. "He's a vice president at Knight-Errant."
    "The private security company?" Quattro asked.
    Jay nodded as he stood up and strapped the Seburo to his right thigh. He would have
    preferred to wear it on his belt cross-draw, but few mecha seat restraints could accomodate
    it. [Cortana, the homoavis?]
    Cortana, back at regular human height, pointed at the Huckevine's right shoulder across
    her body with her left hand. [You can't miss it.]
    [Thanks. Be back soon.] Jay tabbed the hibernate button, stepped out, and pushed off in
    the microgravity of the service tunnel, aiming for the PT's right shoulder. He found the
    marked compartment on the right collarbone, as it were, and quickly put it on. The lines on
    this homoavis were more graceful than those in the AEUG motor pool, with the thruster pods
    located higher, towards the shoulders as opposed to straight from the waist.
    "A quick reminder," Quattro said, "before we proceed. We are here to gather
    information. You are to take no aggressive action unless I do so first. Am I clear?"
    "Crystal."
    Quattro pulled out a codebreaker and attached it to the keypad on the door leading into
    the more narrow tunnels. After a while, it beeped, which prompted him to enter the code it
    displayed on its LCD screen, and the door slid open. The two continued along the tunnels in
    this fashion, Quattro applying his codebreaker as needed, until they came to the door that
    led to the colony interior.
    "That's strange," said a colony tech. "Airlock 23 just opened."
    "CMC's got some fresh meat training out there," his compatriot replied.
    "CMC picked a strange place to break in some new people, if they chose Green Noah."
    The other tech put his finger to his lips. "Sssssh! Unless you want the Colonel to call
    you on the carpet, the name of this place is 'Gripps'!"
    "Woo-hah," the first tech said nonchalantly. "Such a big shot the Colonel is. Looks
    like the newbies figured out how to cycle the airlock now."
    "Yeah, go figure."
    Inside the computer systems of the colony, Cortana breathed a sigh of relief. That was
    too close! She headed over to a intra-colony communications node.
    For the first time since they started out, the codebreaker failed to work on a door.
    "Oh well," Quattro said as he secured the codebreaker. "I didn't expect this thing to be able
    to open doors four times in a row."
    "Have him try 096528," Cortana's voice said over Jay's suit radio as Quattro detached
    an oblong tube from his belt.
    "Cortana?" Jay asked, but the transmission cut off. Jay then realized that the oblong
    tube was a Semtex charge with detonator. "Wait," Jay said as he reached over to type the code
    on the keypad. The door opened.
    "How did you know that?" Quattro asked.
    "I've got a silent partner."
    "Ah. When this is over, you'll have to introduce him."
    "Soon."
    The two men flew off into the lower gravity of the colony center.
    "What do you mean," shouted an officious MP, "you've never heard of the AEUG?!" He sat
    down opposite Camille at the table in what was euphemistically referred to as "the box". "I
    thought all high school kids knew about the AEUG!" He picked up a file folder and leafed
    through it. "Well now, -Mister- Vidan," he said after a moment in a normal tone of voice,
    which Camille had thought this man was incapable of producing. "I see here you've won the
    annual UIL U-18 homoavis race two years running, and this year you also won the mobile suit
    event at the regional FIRST competition. Based on what I see here, you could hold your own in
    a real fight."
    He snapped the file folder shut. "If you aren't with the AEUG, then why the -hell- did
    you pick a fight with an officer of the Titans?!"
    Camille said nothing.
    "Let me tell you about the AEUG, son. They say that they stand for autonomy for the
    colonies. Well, guess what? It's the same old Zeon propaganda, delivered by a pack of
    malcontents who aren't good for anything but criticizing the people of Earth. You're
    Hauptmann Vidan's kid, aren't you? You should be working side-by-side with him, not getting
    into fights with Earth's defenders!" The MP stood up. "What a waste. You can sit there and
    rot for all I care." And with that, he walked out.
    Camille slowly set his head on the edge of the table and looked down at the floor. For
    a second, he thought he could see a space battle unfolding. "Now I know I'm tired," he
    mumbled. "I'm beginning to see things."
    Quattro was lucky Jay was flying behind him, so that he couldn't see his eyes focusing
    on infinity. For some reason, he could hear heavy breathing, but knew it was neither Jay's
    nor his own. He hadn't felt a presence this strong since he last saw Amuro Ray or Lalah
    Sun... no, it couldn't be Lalah.
    "Come again, sir?" Jay asked, and Quattro cursed inwardly as he realized he had said
    some of his own thoughts aloud. "It's nothing," he responded, but something on the ground
    soon caught his eye. "What the--!"
    "What?" Jay wondered.
    "A Gundam?" Quattro mused, looking at the black MS parked on the tarmac of the base he
    and Jay were observing. "I'd recognize that silhouette anywhere," he said more firmly.
    "Like the one that Amuro Ray used in the War, right?" Jay asked.
    Quattro nodded before snapping a picture of the parked Gundam with his digital camera.
    "You don't suppose they're conducting Newtype research, do you, Captain?"
    Quattro knew all about Newtypes. Supposedly the next level of human evolution (or at
    least that's what his father had said, so many years ago), Newtypes were a breed of men who
    had adapted to life in space, and with that, had a broader range of sensory perception than
    most. Quattro found it odd that although his father had first postulated the existence of
    Newtypes, the first documented case by the Federation (and to date, sole surviving example)
    had been Amuro Ray. Such a large solar system, he thought, and yet we still move in the same
    small circles.
    "I doubt it," he answered. "The Titans largely see the Gundam as a symbol of Earth's
    power. After all, the first Gundam turned the tide of the One Year War, snatching victory
    from the jaws of defeat. To them, it'd be like saying, 'Hey, spacenoid! Head to head you
    cannot stop us, you cannot kill us, you cannot survive our wrath.' It's still only part of
    the puzzle, though."
    "So does this mean Amuro's working -with- the Titans?"
    "Probably not. He wouldn't have stood for half of what the Titans have done. Besides,
    Newtypes were never meant to be the tools of war." He let out a deep breath. "We've seen
    enough. Let's get back to the tunnels. It's time for Phase 2."
    As they left, Jay thought about what Quattro had said. If Newtypes weren't meant to be
    the tools of war, then how come all the Newtypes he had read about were so good at it?
    "This Gundam handles like a dream," Jerrid said from the cockpit of his own
    black-painted Gundam MkII. "Much better than a GM Quel."
    "Just don't handle the controls too roughly," Kirkricon replied. "I still remember
    having to fish you out of a colony mirror the last time you drove a Quel in space."
    "Ah, ruin my fun, why doncha?" Jerrid said, slightly put out. The hurt expression
    dissolved into a smile. "This ought to put the fear of God into those Zeeks!"
    "Pay attention," Quattro said once they had gotten back to their mechs. "We're going to
    capture that Gundam we saw at the base, and bring it back for study. The only way we can get
    into the main colony cylinder is to blow a hole in it big enough to admit a MS. That's gonna
    set off the explosive decompression alarms, which means we're going to have company right
    from the word 'go'. At this stage, it's going to be a simple smash-and-grab. No more than ten
    minutes, tops. If you're not out of there in ten minutes, you'll have to walk home."
    Both mechs left the colony cylinder. [We're gonna draw a lot of fire,] Jay sent over
    the neural link. [How fast can you get that Gravity Wall up?]
    [Fast enough,] replied Cortana.
    [How did you know about the door code?]
    [I used the comm system to hack into their database. The access IC was no trouble at
    all.]
    Jay looked up as Quattro launched a flare from one of the knuckles on his left hand
    actuator. "Ringing the doorbell, kid." Quattro explained.
    "That's the signal!" Henken exclaimed. "Mr. Saegusa, target a window section of the
    colony and fire. We only get one shot at this, so make it count."
    A red beam lit the sky as a shot from Ahgama's primary batteries found the mark,
    punching a hole in the colony and causing atmosphere to vent almost immediately after.
    "Showtime, Jay!" Quattro shouted as his Rick Dias headed for the breach, with the
    Huckevine MkII following close behind.
    "The hell?" Jerrid asked as the general alarm sounded over his comm system. "Did a
    meteor hit the colony?"
    "I'm picking up two mobile suits," Kirkricon said. "Possibly AEUG."
    "Well, what are we waiting for, then?"
    Kirkricon looked at his sensors again and muttered, "That can't be right." In a louder
    tone of voice, he said, "Wait one." His eyes widened. "That second suit's no MS... that's a
    Huckevine-class Personal Trooper!"
    Jerrid's eyes widened. "You've gotta be shitting me."
    "The silhouette looks like a Huckevine to me. They're still too far out to get a
    detailed reading. But still... you have read about the Vanishing Trooper Incident, right?"
    Jerrid's features tightened into an evil grin. "They wanted us to test these Gundams,
    didn't they?"
    "Hold your horses, Jerrid! You know we're not supposed to fight inside the colony!"
    "Bullshit! We're Titans! Don't tell me you've forgotten Col. Ohm's standing orders to
    be 'proactive in battle'? If the AEUG wants to fight inside a colony, that's their business!
    And it's our duty to stop those guerillas! So what if they have a Huckevine? This is what
    we've trained for! Hector Squad, move out and engage!"
    # The Offspring "L.A.P.D." _Ignition_
    "You got three Marasais coming in," Cortana said, "designated Pisces Wing. Aquarius
    Wing are the two Gundam MkIIs supporting Pisces, and our objective, Aquarius Three. For an
    organization dedicated to preventing another war, they sure do a lot of thinking with their
    trigger fingers and their testicles." She put a hand to her forehead, lost in thought for a
    second. "I'm going to take a look around for a few. I'll be right back."
    "All right, as long as you come back in time for the fireworks," Jay responded.
    "I wasn't asking your permission, but thanks anyway." Cortana's icon vanished.
    Jay urged the Huckevine MkII forward along the road leading to the base. According to
    the radar, neither Pisces nor Aquarius Wings could intercept the AEUG mechs before they could
    reach the base. A light hop got him over the fence and onto the base grounds proper.
    "There it is," Quattro said, pointing with the Rick Dias's left hand at the truck the
    Gundam was parked on. "Keep the damage to a minimum, ok?"
    "Roger that," Jay replied.
    Camille could hear the alarms outside and the bustle of frenzied activity.
    Experimentally, he tried the door to the interview room and found it to be unlocked. Of
    course, he thought. The colony damage alarm's sounded. It wouldn't do to keep someone in here
    until the air runs out, now would it?
    "Hey, you can't--" the MP next to the door said before Camille silenced him with a kick
    to the face. After ramming his head into the wall a couple times, the MP's body slackened.
    Camille checked for signs of breathing and found them.
    Good, he's only unconscious.
    He rummaged in the guard's pockets and found the keys to his handcuffs. It was time to
    leave this place.
    "Captain," a yeoman said, "we've got mobile suits inside the perimeter!"
    Bright Noah swallowed a curse. Where the hell were those GMs?, he thought. To the
    driver of the carrier truck, he shouted, "Launch Unit 3 as soon as the pilot gets here!"
    "Aren't you the captain of the White Base?" the driver asked.
    "I am, and this is a real battle, soldier! Forget the protocol and just do it!"
    "Sorry I'm late," Emma Sheen said as she ran up to the truck, dressed in her own black
    pressure suit.
    "Lieutenant, are you even trained on the Gundam MkII?"
    "I'm a Titan, sir. My duty is clear, even though I've only had the basics."
    "Who the--!" Bright exclaimed as a dark haired kid darted over to the side of the
    truck. "Hey! You! Stop!"
    Camille stopped for a second before clambering up the side of the truck. Just then, a
    jeep roared up, and a familiar voice shouted, "What the hell are you doing? Launch Unit 3
    now!"
    It's that blustering MP!, Camille thought. I'll show him!
    "Hey!" the truck driver said as he approached Camille, who promptly threw him off the
    truck.
    "What are you doing?" Emma asked.
    "Get away from that MS!" Bright shouted.
    Emma approached the Gundam as Camille entered the cockpit. "Stop this right now!" she
    said sharply.
    "You'd better get back, Emma," Camille replied. "It's dangerous here." And with that,
    he closed the cockpit hatch.
    How does he know the Gundam MkII's systems? Emma thought. And how did he know my name?
    All right, thought Camille as he looked over the panels. I knew getting this
    information off Dad's computer would come in handy someday...
    [Jay,] Cortana sent urgently, [Aquarius Three just powered up!]
    [What?] Jay replied, but Cortana had other pressing things to deal with, for no answer
    came. He punched up a zoom window and saw a woman in a black pressure suit standing on the
    supine Gundam, banging on the cockpit hatch. That's strange, he thought before the threat
    alarm startled him back into action. He moved the Huckevine's back to a building wall and
    took aim at the oncoming Marasais.
    "Get out of that MS immediately!" Bright shouted over the jeep's loudspeaker. "It's not
    a toy!"
    "What are you doing that for?" the MP bellowed. "The enemy is HERE!"
    "That's not the proper pilot in there."
    "How can that MS move then?"
    "Get back, all of you!" Camille replied over his loudspeaker. "You might get hurt if
    you stay! Lt. Emma, Commander Bright, please."
    "He's serious, then," mused Emma.
    "Hmmm," replied Bright as he guided Emma back to the jeep. "When and where have I heard
    that tone of voice before?" It was a rhetorical question at best, for Bright knew the answers
    already. Seven years ago, during the One Year War. On another colony in Side 7, from a then
    15-year-old Amuro Ray.
    # Babylon AD "The Kid Goes Wild" _Babylon AD_
    Camille's eyes swept over the VirtuaCockpit's display. Where'd that MP disappear to?
    ... There!
    The Gundam MkII lit its thrusters for a short hop, coming down behind the MP, cutting
    off his avenue of escape. "YOU!" Camille shouted over the loudspeaker. The MP looked up.
    "YES, YOU!" Camille shouted. "How does it feel to have your rights trampled?" He fired a
    frugally short burst from the head-mounted vulcan cannons at the MP, who scrambled like mad
    to get away. "I'm talking to you!" Camille shouted, but all the MP could do at this point was
    gibber, foul himself, and try to get anywhere but where he was at right now.
    Camille cut off the loudspeaker and laughed out loud like a man insane. The ultimate
    thrill of finally turning of the tables was his. "Pathetic. You're not so tough now, are
    you?"
    Jay started to bring the Subach to bear on the black MS when he heard its pilot say
    over the loudspeaker, "Attention unknown mobile suits! I'm on your side!"
    Quattro was dumbfounded. "What the--?"
    "You want proof?" the unknown pilot asked. "I'll give you proof!" The black Gundam lit
    its thrusters again, this time jumping across town, right at the other Gundam MkIIs. It
    landed in front of the advancing Gundams, and sprung forward, drawing its beam saber and
    slicing right at the Gundam MkII with the numeral "02" on its left shoulder.
    Kirkricon pulled back, letting the beam saber's stroke leave a shallow cut on his
    Gundam MkII's chest. However, he pulled back too far and ended up on his butt in an
    undignified sprawl. Jerrid's beam rifle shot kept Unit 3 from pressing its advantage, and
    Unit 3 took cover behind a building.
    "Dammit!" Kirkricon shouted. "Not even any sim time and I'm already in a battle!"
    Cortana's icon rezzed back into being on Jay's knee, standing with both hands on her
    hips. Already, that pose was becoming a trademark for her. "There. That ought to keep them
    wondering for at -least- the next couple of years."
    "What were you doing?" Jay asked.
    "I told you. Getting the lay of the land, not to mention misdirecting that Federation
    GM platoon that was coming to reinforce the Titans. By the time they figure out where they
    need to be, we'll be long gone. There's something else, though."
    "What is it?"
    "I found out who orchestrated the raid on our convoy. None other than Commander Jamican
    Dannigan, the number-three man in the Titans organization. Apparently, he got the information
    from 'a reliable source' and figured he'd impress the higher-ups by bringing an overtech PT
    into the fold."
    "So?" Jay asked as he put a Marasai down with a single Subach shot. "What are you
    telling me this for?"
    Cortana's face took on an expression that was all mischief and mayhem. "It just so
    happens our dear friend the commander is a patron of one of Side 6's finest escort services.
    At five hundred Federation dollars a night, they don't come cheap, but I assume one would get
    what he paid for. Seeing as how he paid for a whole weekend when he's never even heard of
    this escort service, he ought to go insane when one of his other payment debits bounces. Not
    as insane as his wife when she gets the receipt, though."
    Jay was speechless for a few seconds, his internal ruminations briefly interrupted by
    sending one of the Marasais back behind cover with another blast from the Subach. "That's
    just wrong," he said at length.
    "Is it? This man tried to have you killed!"
    "That's no excuse to go around messing up a man's personal life!" Jay replied.
    "Why not? He did it to you! You had a point back there -- they could've just waited
    until the convoy reached Side 7 and taken the PTs there. Instead, they stage an attack, kill
    lots of civilians -- including Yuko -- and come away with nothing." She spread her arms wide
    before settling her hands back on her hips. "Think what you will, but anybody who'd make that
    kind of decision doesn't -deserve- to live that well."
    Jay exhaled slowly, fighting back a fresh wave of pain. Part of him wanted to come
    right out and ask how Cortana knew about the conversation in Ahgama's wardroom, while the
    other part of him wanted to snap her head off at the neck for bringing up Yuko. After a
    pregnant pause, he said, "You're a vicious woman, Cortana."
    "It's in the job description. And retribution is a moral imperative."
    Jay looked out over the unfolding scene with a faraway look in his eye. "Can you boost
    power to the laser comm array? Say, enough to scar the tarmac?"
    "Sure, but why?"
    "Call it a moral imperative."
    "If you're going to do what I think you're going to do, then as an AI on a combat mech,
    I must tell you that doing that is tactically dangerous. But, as a woman who has recently
    seen these fascists murder friends of hers, I say more power to you."
    # Pantera "Mouth For War" _Vulgar Display Of Power_
    "You stay down," Jerrid radioed to Kirkricon as he readied his Gundam's bazooka. "I'll
    bag this bastard."
    A voice over the radio shouted, "JERRID! It's time we found out how bad you really are
    without your running buddies to help you!"
    "That voice..." Jerrid mused. Raising his voice, he retorted, "So the girly-boy wants a
    second helping!"
    His remark was answered by a beam shot that tagged the Gundam's right knee, snapping
    myomers and dropping it down to one knee. Jerrid fired his shell, which scattered into
    thousands of pellets in mid-air, seeking out Camille's Gundam. Unfortunately, none of them
    found the mark.
    Jerrid cursed and loaded a HEAT round into the bazooka. Just then, he saw his quarry
    break cover, darting across the street toward another building. Jerrid snap-fired the
    bazooka, but only hit a parked car, which went up in a fireball that would have been more
    satisfying if it had been the Gundam that was hit.
    "Not that easy, Jerrid!" Camille shouted, firing his own bazooka at Jerrid's Gundam,
    which hit the left chest right at the shoulder joint, shearing off the left arm entirely.
    Camille grinned with sadistic glee. This was too easy. Then again, the son of a bitch had it
    coming. His concentration was disrupted by a bazooka shell that missed him by a meter or two,
    detonating against the corner of the building he was hiding behind and causing him to duck
    back behind the building.
    "He's so fast," Kirkricon muttered as he reloaded. "Could he be a Newtype?"
    "They're still shooting in the colony?" Camille wondered. "This is insane!" He peeked
    back around the corner and caught the other Gundam in the head with a HEAT round, making the
    head disappear in a fireball! The headless Gundam then fell back onto the road like a sack of
    old potatoes, its sensors destroyed.
    Kirkricon, for his part, was in shock. "Unbelievable," he muttered.
    Jerrid knew he had to move immediately or he would surely die here. He managed to lever
    his Gundam back upright and was hobbling toward the building that Girly-Boy was hiding
    behind. He loaded another HEAT round into the bazooka. As far as he was concerned, the
    playing around stopped -now-. "You better stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass
    goodbye," he grunted as he rounded the corner, looking for the shot in the rear...
    Only to find his quarry rising on ion jets, beam rifle at the ready, snapping a shot
    off that narrowly missed the head, but etched a deep scar into the engine shielding, causing
    it to crack and vent drive plasma. Only Jerrid's quick reflexes in shutting down his reactor
    saved his life. It did not, however, save his Gundam MkII as it toppled over on its side into
    the building, collapsing the upper two floors.
    Jerrid shook his head ruefully. "Looks like I underestimated you a little. But don't
    even THINK this is over!"
    The AEUG icon appeared in Camille's comm window, and was soon replaced by Quattro's
    face. "Pretty good shooting, kid," he said, "What's your name?"
    "Camille. Camille Vidan."
    "Think you can fly that Gundam back to our ship, Camille?"
    "Yessir."
    "Follow us, then. Jay, let's move."
    The three mechs took off into the early afternooncycle sky and headed for the rent in
    the colony's side.
    "What's this I hear about the AEUG stealing a Gundam MkII?" Hauptmann-Kommandant Cima
    Garahau asked over a secure vidlink.
    "We were in the process of testing the protoypes," answered Jamican Dannigan. "We only
    lost one of them. The remaining two--"
    "Are undergoing extensive repairs, if I hear correctly. You barely have the frames
    built on your other four, as well." She steepled her gloved hands in front of her. "And you
    call yourselves Titans."
    "You listen to me, you arrogant little wench!" Bosque Ohm, the bald-headed, goggled
    colonel of the Titans barked as he slammed a hand down on the desk. "You came to us. We did
    not come to you! It would behoove you to keep that in mind."
    Cima scowled. "Might I also remind you of who provided the baseline data that made that
    Gundam MkII design of yours possible?" She took a deep breath. "I trust you will be able to
    make the agreed-upon rendevous, correct?"
    Jamican nodded. "Of course," he said.
    "Then any further discussion at this time would be counter-productive. We can table our
    additional business until such time as cooler heads prevail, yes?"
    Bosque sighed. "Very well," he spat. The vidlink turned off. "Commander, I do believe
    that... woman would -eat- her young. And the reports of this EOT mech also complicates
    things. How bad was the colony damaged?"
    "Aside from the breach, a good number of homes in the residential area surrounding the
    base were destroyed. With Gripps so close to completion, I see no point in rebuilding just to
    have them all move out two months later."
    "All right, arrange for a full evacuation of civilian and non-essential personnel."
    "Colonel," a secretary announced via a desk intercom, "Lieutenants Cacooler and Sheen
    are here."
    "Send them in."
    The door opened, admitting the two officers. "Sir," Kirkricon said, "Units 1 and 2 have
    been taken aboard the Alexandria for further repairs."
    "Commander Noah is also here to see you," Emma added. "He says it's urgent."
    Bosque nodded curtly. The two Titans officers moved to stand before the sofa on the
    side wall of the office as Bright Noah walked in with a full head of steam. "Colonel, why did
    you conduct the Gundam MkII training inside the colony? If you had conducted it in space or
    on Green Noah 1, it would have minimized any damage to the residential are--"
    That was about as far as Bright could go before Bosque stood up out of his chair and
    answered Bright's question with a right cross to the face. Emma looked on in shock as Bright
    collapsed to the floor. She started towards the center of the room, but Bosque said, "Leave
    him be, Lieutenant." To Bright's prostrate form, he said, "The day-to-day affairs on this
    colony are -not- the regular army's concern. This is a Titans base, Commander. We have our
    own way of doing things here, and you would do well to remember it!"
    Bright staggered to his feet. "I was under the impression that the Titans were part of
    the Federation Armed Forces... sir."
    "As a matter of fact," Bosque said, completely evading the last question, "this is the
    staging area for our campaign against the remnants of Zeon, and their allies, the AEUG. They
    are the ones responsible for the anti-Earth demonstrations, and we cannot decisively deal
    with this threat if we have to consider the convenience of every spacenoid living here."
    Bright's lips tightened. "If I may speak freely?"
    "Morbid curiosity compels me to grant you that request, Commander."
    "I would like to tell you something from my own personal experience. The more colonies
    you turn into bases, the more colonies will slip right through your fingers. You might wipe
    out the AEUG, true, but there will be more organizations just like them if this policy
    continues!"
    Kirkricon sprung in front of Bright and cuffed him sharply. "That's enough out of you!"
    Bright collected himself. "How dare you strike a superior officer!"
    "You're not -my- superior," Kirkricon sneered. "Wake up and smell the coffee, sailor.
    This is a -Titans- base. The normal rules do not apply here."
    "The only thing this policy will do is widen the rift between the colonies and Earth!"
    A Titans yeoman said, "He said, that's enough!" as he punched Bright in the face.
    Bright collapsed against the sofa as the yeoman and Kirkricon moved in to perform what could
    best be called a gang beatdown.
    Bosque calmly collected his cap and left the office.
    Emma held her salute as the colonel left. She looked over toward the beating and
    wondered, not for the first time, what the world was coming to when war heroes were beaten
    just for speaking their minds.
    Quattro's Rick Dias shot a blob of white polymer at the breach. It clung to the edges,
    like a man-made spider web. "Watch the birdlime, you two," he said as he slipped his Rick
    Dias through the largest hole left uncovered by the polymer patch. It was a tricky approach,
    and Quattro made it look easy. Jay only needed to make a minor correction, while Camille
    needed to ply his verniers like a madman to make the gap unscathed.
    Well, not entirely unscathed, thought Camille as his master alarm went off. He checked
    the damage control panel, and found it reading an air leak in the cockpit. Without any
    conscious thought at all, he reached under his sweater, ripped a piece of his shirt off, and
    let it go inside the cockpit, where it came to a stop inside a spot on the VirtuaCockpit
    display. The alarm tones began to wane before dying down completely, and the master alarm
    lamp shut off. "How long before we can relax?" he asked over the radio.
    Jay answered, "Well, it took us 30 minutes to get here, so I reckon it'd take 30
    minutes to get back."
    "Why do you ask?" Quattro queried.
    "Well, uh, this is my first time in space," Camille stammered. It really is every bit
    as beautiful as I thought it would be, he thought.
    "You get the hang of it soon enough," Jay said.
    The three mechs hurtled on to their rendevous point.
    # Stevie Ray Vaughan "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" _Couldn't Stand The Weather_
    TO BE CONTINUED...
    Appendix: Military Rank Chart for Officers of Human Armies, c. April 0187, Part One
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    (Note: O-ratings for other armies are listed as equivalents to Earth Federation forces)
    Earth Federation Navy
    ---------------------
    O-1 Ensign
    O-2 Lieutenant (j.g.)
    O-3 Lieutenant
    O-4 Lt. Commander
    O-5 Commander
    O-6 Captain
    O-7 Rear Admiral
    O-8 Vice Admiral
    O-9 Admiral
    O-10 Fleet Admiral
    AEUG (see Earth Federation Navy for naval ranks to O-6)
    ----
    O-1 Ensign
    O-2 Leftenant
    O-3 Captain
    O-4 Major
    O-5 Lt. Colonel
    O-6 Colonel
    O-7 General (currently Brex Forra)
    Principality of Zeon (Army/Navy, MS units use army ranks)
    (Neo-Zeon uses army ranks exclusively until O-6, then navy ranks exclusively)
    --------------------
    O-1 Unterleutnant/Leutnant (zur Sterne)
    O-2 Leutnant/Oberleutnant (zur Sterne)
    O-3 Hauptmann/Kapitanleutnant
    O-4 Kommandant/Korvettenkapitan
    O-5 Hauptmann-Kommandant/Fregattenkapitan
    O-6 Oberst/Kapitan
    O-7 Brigadegeneral/Flottillenadmiral
    O-8 Generalleutnant/Vizeadmiral
    O-9 General/Admiral
    O-10 Field Marshal (currently Giren Zabi)
    Titans
    ------
    O-1 Pilot (MS/Aero, naval branch uses Ensign)
    O-2 Lieutenant
    O-3 Hauptmann
    O-5 Commander
    O-6 Colonel (currently Bosque Ohm)
    O-9 General (currently Jamitov Heimann)
    Acknowledgements
    ----------------
    To Banpresto, purveyors of fine mecha-gaming goodness.
    To Sunrise, purveyors of fine mecha anime.
    To Zhou Tai An and Mark Neidengard, for their excellent body of work.
    To my prereaders, for making me readable: particularly Will Mao, who may find himself in
    similar straits one day; and (once again) the incredible Jan Michael Aldeguer.
    To Eric Nylund, for teaching us all not to piss off the AI.
    Embellishment List v. 1.01
    --------------------------
    The FREESPACE series and RED FACTION by Volition Inc.
    STARLANCER by Digital Anvil
    The MARATHON series and HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED by Bungie Studios
    DEUS EX by Ion Storm
    INTRON DEPOT by Masamune Shirow
    SCUD: THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN by Rob Schrab
    HALO: THE FALL OF REACH by Eric Nylund
    SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (TV)
    THE MATRIX (movie)
    CYBERPUNK 2.0.2.0. and MEKTON ZETA by R. Taslorian Games
    HEAVY GEAR and JOVIAN CHRONICLES by Dream Pod 9
    SHADOWRUN by FASA Corporation
    The RENEGADE LEGION series, originally by FASA Corporation
    The FIRST competition mentioned by the interrogator really does exist. Check out
    for more info. Sorry, no mobile suit division yet.
    If anybody sold you a hardcopy of this work, they ripped you off. I'm not writing this fic
    for monetary gain (it's freely available and distributable as long as the credits and
    disclaimer remain intact), nor to challenge the copyrights on enough characters, likenesses,
    and indicia to fill a major metropolitan area. Besides, I'm just this guy struggling to make
    ends meet, you know?
    Any faults with when and where certain characters fit into the general scheme of things can
    be blamed solely on the author.
    Jay Denton will return in "The Winds Of War/Ohm's Law"


	3. The Winds of War / Ohm's Law


    Lynn Mao looked up from the report she was poring over as the desk terminal in her
    quarters bleeped at her. Displayed on the screen was the phrase "**** INCOMING MESSAGE FROM
    LEELA ****". She pressed the green "ACCEPT" button.
    "Lynn," a female voice said after Lynn had pressed the button, "there's a problem."
    Lynn sighed as she took a sip of ice water from the glass on her desk. Whenever Leela
    said there was a problem, it could mean anything from "we've got cost overruns on our latest
    PT project" to "mecha-beasts are rampaging through our factory in Shanghai". She'd known
    Leela long enough to make that assumption. "Yes, Leela?" she asked.
    "The shipment of Huckevine MkIIs to Side 7 for the DC advanced testing program has just
    been declared overdue. Neither the Marathon nor any other ship in the convoy has arrived at
    Side 7. Further inquiry reveals that no ship called the Marathon was ever scheduled to
    arrive. Quite puzzling, wouldn't you agree?"
    "Yes, given that this was a bonded courier shipment," Lynn replied. The cost of
    replacing two overtech mecha would easily bankrupt any shipping line but the largest. She ran
    her hands through her gene-dyed hot pink hair. "Have Gilmour look into this further. I need
    somebody onsite, and there's too much to be done here to spare Ilm, Daiken, or Ryoga." She
    sighed. "More's the pity. The Dinosaur Empire picked a fine time to get froggy."
    "You also have a priority email," Leela said. "From Cortana."
    "What's a DC AI emailing me for?" Lynn asked to herself as she opened her email
    program.
    "The Divine Crusaders needed to make sure there were no... unforeseen complications
    with the Huckevine MkIIs," Leela replied. "They said that if anybody can sniff out a
    computing booby trap, it would be Cortana."
    "Thank you, Leela," Lynn sighed. Leela could be so literal sometimes, she thought as
    she looked over to read...
    From: cortana@cant.guess.where (Cortana)
    To: lynn@mao-ind.com
    Subject: Joe McCarthy's Stolen Holiday
    I find myself in the strangest situations sometimes. Especially when it involves people.
    How has it been with you? The weather here is nice, the sun is shining, and I've been making
    lots of new friends. Then again, I always do. (Especially this one guy that works for you --
    a little naive, but attractive in that boy-next-door way.)
    Check your networked disk space. I put something there that should interest you a great deal.
    You might not be able to do anything about those psychotic zealots whose primary form of
    worship seems to involve kneeling at the altar of atrocity, but I felt you should at least
    know rather than being kept in the dark. I've also found a few other things about them that
    would blow your mind, but I had my ride home to keep track of and was rushed for time.
    There is a blurred line between duty and ambition. Guess which side they're on.
    Cortana
    --
    "The man who hungers for truth should expect no mercy and give none." -- HST
    Lynn took another sip of water as she looked in her network share space. Inside was a
    file she recognized as a battle ROM. She opened it and watched, her lips tightening and fists
    clenching as the Marathon's destruction played itself out. The following mecha battle caused
    her to relax visibly, but the set of her eyes told of a weight that would not soon go away.
    She opened the next file, and it was an overhead shot of the base at Green Noah 2. Burned
    into the tarmac was the legend "REMEMBER CONVOY LM-23". Lynn finished her drink, seemingly
    lost in thought.
    I didn't think they'd go this far. I should've seen this coming, dammit. Show me a
    group of people with no oversight, answerable to no one, and I'll show you a group of people
    who are above the law. And worse yet, they know it, and act accordingly. There will come a
    reckoning, Titans. Oh yes.
    Good luck, Denton. For the moment, my vengeance is in your hands.
    "Leela," she said at length, "get me Jay Denton's personnel record. Make copies of the
    battle ROM in my share space. Ten copies ought to do it. And reschedule Sunday's brunch with
    Natsuki Yanagi, for obvious reasons." Natsuki was in the same position as Lynn back in 0178:
    the young heir apparent to a successful conglomerate. They had since moved on to assume the
    respective helms of their families' businesses, and still kept in touch, largely due to the
    Defender and PTX squadrons working side-by-side during the One Year War. She would understand
    the need to reschedule. It didn't mean either woman had to like the reasons, but there they
    were.
    There goes my weekend, thought Lynn ruefully. Again.
    ***
    Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    presents a Tale of the Super Robot Wars
    written and directed by SliderDF (sliderdf@hotmail.com)
    Story copyright 2002, Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    Kage No Senshi -- Cycle 1: When Your Regular Deus Ex Machina Isn't Cutting It Anymore
    Phase 3a: The Winds Of War
    ***
    "That," Quattro Bajina said to Jay Denton as they stood in the hangar of the Ahgama
    looking up at Jay's Huckevine MkII, "is some mech you have there."
    "I'd like to think so," Jay replied. "I don't know why you asked for me, though."
    "Ah, thanks for coming," said Astonage Meddoso as he drifted on over toward the two.
    "As you know, Jay, the Huckevine MkII uses many parts from the Geshpenst MkII. I thought it'd
    at least take some parts from the original Huckevine model, but those don't fit on this one.
    If I had to guess why, I'd say that it has to do with the extensive use of EOT. But I
    digress. There's something I want to show you and the Major." He punched a few keys on the
    computer attached to a scaffold, and characters began to scroll on the screen. "This is a
    diagram of the control system. It incorporates a brainwave reading system, with the input
    coming from receptors in your helmet."
    "Like a Psycommu system," mused Quattro.
    "Yes," Astonage said, "like a Psycommu system. Except this one seems to have a mind of
    its own. I tried plugging my simsense electrodes into it to see if I got any kind of
    feedback. I ended up getting dumped from the interface. So I checked some things out." He
    tapped a couple of keys. "This is a decompilation of the runtime image from the Huckevine
    MkII taken shortly after you first arrived on board. Note how the code is nicely documented.
    But when you get to the Level 2 interface, the coding style changes." He scrolled down to the
    Level 2 interface section, which looked like a tangle of spaghetti compared to the rest of
    the decompiled code. "I'm positive it did not leave the factory like this. It looks like it
    had been modified -on the fly- to accept only one person's thought patterns."
    "Meaning?" Quattro asked.
    "This Personal Trooper knows exactly who it wants to pilot it. It wants Jay."
    Jay looked at the chief technician in shock. His thoughts drifted back to the "initial
    calibration" that Cortana spoke of.
    ("We are bonded now, you and I.")
    Could Cortana have been speaking to him through a familiar face? Or several?
    As if his thoughts evoked the former's presence, a smooth contralto voice broke the
    silence that settled over the gathering. "Jay, do you want to tell them or shall I?"
    "The silent partner reveals herself at last," Quattro mused sotto voce.
    Jay's wide-eyed stare at Astonage's chain of logic dissolved into a long sigh of
    resignation. "You might as well, you've already started."
    "My name is Cortana, of the same silicon and temper as Leela, Durandal, Balthasar,
    Caspar, and Melchior. And it is a honor to make your acquaintance, Herr Oberst."
    Quattro didn't recall one of Charlemagne's swords ever being named "Leela", and he was
    sure the last three were wise men as opposed to weapons of war. The reference would have gone
    over his head, had Zeon Zum Daikun not insisted on a classical education for his son.
    "Well," he replied, taking the message in the spirit in which it was offered, "I am merely a
    humble field captain, but this is the first time I've heard that from an AI."
    "I'm not like most AIs," Cortana replied coyly.
    "Indeed."
    "You know," said Jay a short while later as he cradled a can of coffee between his
    skinsuited hands, "I don't understand how you old-timers can stand to drink this stuff." He
    was perched on a couch in the pilots' ready room. "It's just... so bitter."
    "You just drank soda before, didn't you?" asked Roberto.
    Jay nodded absently.
    "Sometimes," Apolli noted as he leaned back against the wall, "coffee is all you can
    get on patrol."
    "You get used to it," Roberto added. The door opened, admitting a blue-haired youth
    wearing a somewhat beat-up blue and green sweater. "Ah, Newtype," Roberto said, indicating
    the new arrival with a nod of his head. The new arrival said nothing as he went around the
    couches to the vending machines.
    "He seems friendly enough," Jay remarked dryly. Who peed in his corn flakes?, he
    thought.
    "The same people that took a dump in your cheery oats," the youth said, looking away
    from the vending machine for a second to look at the boy sitting on the couch in a dark blue
    and silver skinsuit with short dark brown hair, improbably spiky forelocks, and blue eyes.
    "How'd you--?" Jay asked.
    "How'd I what?" he answered.
    "Never mind. Good Lord, where are my manners? Jay Denton."
    "Camille Vidan."
    "Camille..." Jay began, seemingly lost in thought for a second, causing Camille's
    shoulders to tense involuntarily. "That's French, isn't it?"
    "Yeah."
    "Thought so. Nice to meet you, man. You ever think about just going by 'Cam'? Makes you
    sound like a hockey player, I know, but--" A narrowing of Camille's eyes told Jay that he had
    just stepped in it, and he mentally kicked himself as he braced for the shitstorm.
    "No! It's just like Roberto calling me 'Newtype'! In fact, I'd appreciate it if none of
    you called me names, even if you're only joking!"
    Jay wanted to ask him, "So what are we supposed to call you? 'Hey You'?", but figured
    Camille was in no mood for flippancy. "All right, already," he said, one hand extended palm
    outward in a gesture of conciliation. "Withdrawn. Not that there's anything wrong with
    'Camille', of course, but I have this thing for abbreviation."
    Now it was Camille's turn to be lost in thought for a second. Maybe Fa had a point
    after all. Maybe the only person who had a problem with his name was him.
    He wondered what she was doing right now...
    For her part, Fa Yuri sat in a hastily-erected, filled-to-capacity passenger section
    aboard the White Base, trying her best not to be frightened out of her mind. There weren't
    enough pressure suits to go around, leaving her to go without. The emergency klaxons had gone
    off two minutes ago, and despite the attendant's instructions that she not leave her seat,
    she burned to do just that. She also wished Camille were here, but she had lost track of him
    since the raid on Green Noah 2 and the subsequent evacuation. Captain Bright can handle this,
    she thought. But all the same, she felt like she herself -had- to do something.
    Unfortunately, the only thing she could really do at the moment was to stay put...
    "Attention unknown mobile suits," Bright Noah said on an audio channel, his face dotted
    with bandages over the wounds of his recent mauling. "We are transporting civilians! I say
    again, we are transporting civilian evacuees! Do you read me, over?" Silence greeted Bright's
    transmission.
    "With all due respect, cap'n," drawled Lieutenant Sleggar Rowe over the intercom from
    the launch bay, "I don't think they give a shit."
    "We just lost the last of our Lancer fighters!" the aeroboss yelled over to Bright.
    Bright sat at his conn chair for a few seconds, lost in thought. "Sleggar," he said,
    "you remember how you were always telling me that the Core Booster will still fly?"
    "Sure do."
    "Tell Chief Jones I needed that Core Booster operational yesterday. In the meantime,
    you do whatever you have to do to get those broken ribs of yours dogged down. You're the only
    combat pilot I've got left."
    "Aye aye, sir. Sleggar out." The intercom shut off.
    Bright turned to the rest of the bridge crew. "Increase to flank!" He paused. "And send
    out a mayday. Those GMs can't last much longer, even if all they're doing is covering our
    withdrawal."
    The senior command staff of the Ahgama were holding an impromptu conference on the
    elevator leading to the bridge level. "Am I expecting too much?" Brex Forra asked. "I'd like
    to believe both Camille and Jay are Newtypes."
    "What's your assessment, Major?" Henken Beckner added.
    "Newtypes," replied Quattro, "are not necessarily psionic, so any kind of testing will
    produce limited results at best. I don't see anything remarkable about those two, but the
    potential is there. I can feel that much."
    "I'm sure you'll take good care of them," Brex noted.
    The elevator dinged and the doors opened, just in time to hear Torres's cry over the
    intercom of "Captain to the bridge!" The three men hurried down the hallway to the bridge.
    "Status report, Mr. Torres!" bellowed Henken as he vaulted into his chair.
    "I think you'd better listen to this," Torres replied as he tabbed a key. "--any
    Federation ship able to respond, this is the EFC White Base! We are under attack by unknown
    mobile suits! Our interceptor wings are almost depleted, requesting immediate assistance!"
    "Red alert!" shouted Henken. "Lay in an intercept course!"
    "General quarters! General quarters! All hands to battle stations! Repeat, all hands to
    battle stations!"
    On ship, that was an Order That Must Be Obeyed Right The Hell Now. Drinks were set
    down, as were cards, books, and anything else. In the pilots' ready room, it was no
    different.
    "You see?" Apolli said as he hurriedly set his drink down on the nearest flat surface.
    "It's always something."
    Jay bolted for the hangar, seeing how he was already dressed to fly. They still hadn't
    found any spare clothes for Jay to change into, and although his skinsuit was designed to be
    comfortable, even for long periods of wear, it was starting to get a little discomforting.
    But, something was gnawing at Jay's senses with enough force to make him forget that he had
    been wearing the same skinsuit for close to one whole day.
    "Major," he said as the rest of Ahgama's MS company arrived in the hangar, "something's
    not right here."
    "Tell me about it," Quattro replied. "Five minutes ago, the White Base sent a general
    distress call. We're answering it."
    "I guess not even museum ships are safe these days," mused Roberto.
    "-The- White Base?" Camille asked. Quattro nodded. "That's Captain Bright's ship! We've
    got to save it!"
    "I can't put my finger on it," Jay elaborated, "but I've got a bad feeling about this
    launch. It's like... the other shoe's fixing to drop any second."
    Quattro doffed his sunglasses and looked Jay in the eyes. "You're sure about this?"
    Jay nodded. "Yes, I am."
    "All right. I'll put you on Ready-5 launch. You'll be on standby in case the other shoe
    does drop. The rest of you, move like you've got a purpose!"
    Tai-i Paptimus Scirocco of the Jovian Home Defense Force willed the tension out of his
    shoulders as he snapped his Messala through a wingover and peppered a GM with missile fire.
    At the speed the Messala was travelling, he was already 500 meters past the GM when its
    reactor let go, consuming it in a fireball.
    Amateurs, thought Scirocco as he took a deep breath, unfiltered by any pressure
    helmet's respirator. His gene-dyed deep purple hair hung to his shoulders, kept out of his
    eyes by a headband. How can I properly test my Messala against these scrubs? They certainly
    have fallen far since the days of Amuro Ray. He sighed inwardly. Some legends should know
    when to stay dead.
    "Capitano Peretti," he said, "your path is clear. If the ship resists, you are
    authorized to destroy it."
    "Roger," replied the Zanscare captain as seven mobile suits moved to engage the White
    Base. They still held enough of their national pride to keep their official language
    (Italian, of all things), even though the Zanscare Empire was now part of the Greater Jovian
    Co-Prosperity Sphere.
    Scirocco smiled thinly as he noted a new contact on his scopes. Maybe they will have
    more worthy foes.
    A comm window opened to show the face of a luminescent being, without any discernible
    facial features, save an eyebrow ridge and an aquiline nose. The glow that came from within
    was brightest around his face, and would have made them superfluous at any rate. "Beware,
    Scirocco-tai-i," he said. "In that ship lies a foe who could challenge even me."
    "I sincerely doubt that, Helios, but I'll keep it in mind," Scirocco replied. "Just
    keep the Jupitoris on standby in case I need to evac."
    "Yes, sir." Helios's comm window clicked off.
    Scirocco could already feel an under-pressure sensation at the edges of his senses, the
    same sensation that told him another Newtype was near.
    Finally, he thought, a real challenge.
    # CKY "96 Quite Bitter Beings" _Volume 1_
    Capitano Enzo Peretti of the Zanscare Empire's standing army, the BESPA (for Ballistic
    Equipment & Space Patrol Armory, a Federation installation seized when the Empire was
    founded), grinned a shark's grin. The time had come to cast down the old order (after all,
    had not the Empress Maria willed it so?), and no ship of Earth's symbolized the old order
    like the White Base. "Set your string launchers to grapple," he radioed to his men. "They
    start returning fire, switch to damage."
    "Sir," noted Sottotenente Gino Carraba, "the hangar door's opening!"
    "That's impossible," Peretti replied. "They've got no combat craft left!"
    Twin spears of coherent plasma announced the presence of a fightercraft with stubby
    delta wings and a tiny cockpit mounted on a stocky aeroframe as it hurtled forth from the
    White Base, and Peretti swallowed a curse as he wrenched his controls, barely avoiding the
    bolts as they flew past.
    Sottotenente Casselbeck was not so lucky. The plasma beams pinioned his Zoloat, gouging
    holes deep into the right side of its chest and just above the cockpit. Slag began to bubble
    around the wounds before the Zoloat's reactor, impaled on the beam like an insect in a
    collection, went supercritical. The stubby plane flew right through the scattering Zoloats,
    already out of beam-string range by the time they could be brought to bear.
    Peretti swore in disgust. I lose one of my boys to a friggin' museum piece?!, he
    thought, recognizing the Core Booster for what it was.
    "Lidar contacts!" Sottotenente Recchi shouted over an audio channel. "Four mobile suits
    coming in fast!"
    Carraba's face appeared in a comm window on Peretti's screen. "You were saying,
    Capitano?"
    [I've got seven-- no, make that six Zoloats, designated Capricorn Wing,] Cortana sent
    to Jay as he was watching the battle from Ahgama's launch deck. [The other contact... no,
    this can't be right!]
    [What can't be right?] Jay replied.
    [This contact. It's not in my database, and whatever computer system it's got on it is
    blocking me from finding out what it is. If we got closer, I'd be able to have a better look
    without any Minovsky interference... no matter. It's Sagittarius One, if you're curious.]
    Jay tabbed over to Sagittarius One ("UNIDENTIFIED") and found it to be 1.95 km away
    from the Ahgama, just circling there. "Looks like he likes to lead from the rear," he mused.
    The nagging sensation returned, playing a brief tocatta on Jay's perceptions.
    You know that's not the real reason he's back there. He's taking a breather.
    "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!" shouted Sleggar as he snap-rolled away from a Zoloat's beam
    cannon fire. "What a rush!" As he turned around to start another strafing run, he noticed the
    Ahgama's MS complement thrusting to engage. "Looks like the cavalry's arrived!"
    "White Base, this is the AES Ahgama," a voice said calmly over the audio channel.
    "What's your status?"
    AES Ahgama?! Bright Noah did not speak aloud. He'd never heard of a ship called Ahgama,
    nor did he have any idea what AES stood for. But if they were asking for the status of his
    ship...
    Whoever they were, they certainly weren't raiders nor Titans. And he certainly was not
    one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
    He replied, "Aside from the obvious, we're still spaceworthy, but our drives have
    sustained some damage."
    "Copy, White Base. Our MS complement will take it from here."
    Bright Noah allowed himself a small glimmer of hope, the first since his travail
    started on Green No-- Gripps, now. White Base shuddered as what looked like many grappling
    hooks embedded themselves into the flanks of the mighty vessel, shot from compartments on the
    shoulder pauldrons of two of the unknown mobile suits. "Tighten up the flak barrage!" he
    shouted to his crew. "Don't let them get closer!"
    Then yellow beams plowed into the grappling suits, gouging holes in the torso armor and
    venting reactor plasma, boiling through actuator linkages in forearms that were brought up to
    block the shots, and basically making life hell for the raider pilots. Two familiar mobile
    suits shot past the grapplers, one black, one bright scarlet as more beams covered their
    advance. Some of those beams found their mark, increasing the overall entropy of the universe
    and of the grappling suits in particular.
    Bright blinked once to clear his vision of the after-images produced by the exploding
    raider mechs and saw one of the surviving raiders open his shoulder pauldron. The grappling
    hooks quested forth again, glowing as if they were actually beams, headed for the red MS
    Bright had seen once before at Gripps 2 during the raid that started this very long day. The
    red mech drew a beam saber and deftly beat the grapples aside before slagging their launcher
    with a well-placed shot into the shoulder from the pistol it held in its right hand.
    Seeing the red MS in action confirmed Bright's suspicions. Even in his wildest dreams,
    he never thought he'd see the day that Char Aznable would save his life and his ship.
    Quattro had just finished off the MS he'd shot earlier with a single shot to the chest
    when he felt a strange sensation, like he had been placed in a decompression chamber and
    pressurized to one kilometer below sea level. He looked around and saw it coming from a speck
    in the distance. "Red Three and Four," he radioed to Apolli and Roberto, "stay with the White
    Base." He pointed to Camille's Gundam MkII, which had just blown one of the Zoloats in half
    with a HEAT bazooka round. "Red Two, you're with me."
    Sottotenente Recchi's screams faded into static and Enzo Peretti swore. When they
    picked his company for a deniable operation inside the Belt, the possibility of them getting
    killed seemed remote at best. But now, with more than half of his section annihilated within
    three minutes, the odds of that event were now looking pretty good.
    Where did these new suits come from?
    It hardly mattered where at this point. Enzo Peretti did not get to his current rank
    without contingency planning. And he knew what he needed to do, even though it meant putting
    more of his men into the murder machine that the Jovian Tai-i said was an easy target.
    "McCauley," Peretti said. "Lupo. I say again, lupo."
    He bracketed the scarlet MS in his sights. That would serve as a good start to the side
    party he was preparing for his men when they arrived at where they were going. "Red Comet, my
    ass!" he breathed as his lead reticle merged with the target reticle, prompting him to
    squeeze the trigger for his shoulder-mounted beam cannons.
    "Hull integrity failing! Get us out of here, si--aaarrgh!" Carraba said shortly before
    the black MS put a beam rifle shot through his cockpit. At that instant, milliseconds before
    Peretti's beams would have hit, the scarlet MS flitted out of harm's way.
    It really -is- the Red Comet, he thought. Impossible!
    The last thing Enzo Peretti saw was yellow light filling his cockpit.
    [More Zoloats inbound! Seven of them, coming in at bearing 294 mark 30! Designating as
    Virgo Wing! And they're locked onto us!]
    The bridge had noticed the new arrivals too, for no sooner had Cortana completed her
    thought than Henken's face appeared in the comm window. "Jay, you're cleared for immediate
    launch!"
    "Roger," Jay replied, before a crooked smile creased his face. He couldn't resist
    saying the next thing that came to his mind. "Red Five, I'm going in!"
    [You've seen that movie too many times,] Cortana noted.
    Jay didn't bother to comment on that statement. He didn't even bother with the launcher
    sled, preferring instead to push off the catapult deck and launch manually. Only after he got
    about 200 meters away from Ahgama, he said, "Awful lot of them."
    [Don't think of it as being vastly outnumbered. Think of it as having an extensive shot
    selec-- wait a second.] Cortana's icon smiled that crooked smile of hers, the kind that made
    Jay wonder whether or not she was subconsciously imitating him, or if he was imitating her.
    [You might find this interesting.]
    A woman's voice rang out across the general comm frequency, shouting "PSYCHO BLASTER!"
    # Aerosmith "Nine Lives" _Nine Lives_
    A pink nimbus of energy suddenly billowed forth from a point behind the oncoming
    Zoloats, soon engulfing the rear ranks. Three of the Zoloats withstood this about as well as
    sand castles withstand a tsunami, disintegrating within seconds. One of them was tossed on
    the wave of the nimbus, but somehow managed to weather the storm with a few dents, scorch
    marks, and slow reaction mass leaks. The wave's momentum petered out before it could engulf
    the three lead Zoloats of Virgo Wing, collapsing back upon itself to reveal an ultratech
    Valkyrie (in the more traditional sense of the word). Whatever this was, it was made to look
    like a woman in ornate form-fitting silver armor, with gold plating on the chest plastron and
    the pelvic region, and large shoulder pauldrons with what looked like large green gems on
    them. She stood in space with her arms at her sides, her long pink hair beginning to settle
    down her back from where it had blown straight up, as if being driven by an unseen wind.
    "This must be a popular section of space," Cortana quipped over a hailing frequency
    before Jay could say anything. "It attracts the finest people."
    A comm window opened, except the icon was the upraised flaming sword of the Divine
    Crusaders. A woman's face soon replaced the icon. Jay immediately noticed that she wore no
    pressure suit at all, rather a white tank top that accentuated her athletic frame. Her straw
    colored hair, which hung well below her shoulders, was kept out of her eyes by a dark blue
    headband. Her face bore a look of surprise for a second before she cracked a smile. "Good to
    see you too, Cortana," she replied sardonically. "How did you ever get roped into PT
    sitting-- never mind, it'd take too long to explain..." The armored warrior-woman mech lit
    her reaction thrusters, dancing out of the way of the damaged Zoloat's beam cannon fire.
    "Hey!" the unfamiliar girl shouted. "You'll pay for that! DIVINE ARM!"
    The mech (which Jay's HUD immediately bracketed as green for friendly and identified as
    "Ryuune -- Valcione R") made a motion with her right arm as if to draw a sword, and
    instantly, a sheathed sword appeared in front of her. Taking the scabbard in her left hand,
    the Valcione drew the sword with her right and then tossed the scabbard away, which caused it
    to wink out of existence, returning to whatever pocket dimension it came from. She redlined
    her thrusters toward the Zoloat that shot at her, spinning out of its line of fire before
    slicing it in half at the waist with the sword.
    Torres broke in on the conversation with a comm window of his own. "Jay, fire in the
    hole! Repeat, fire in the hole!"
    The Ahgama opened up with its portside main batteries, laying down a blistering
    fusillade to keep the remainder of Virgo Wing at bay. Jay took aim at the lead Zoloat and
    squeezed off a shot from his Subach. The Zoloat was already dodging wildly, so Jay's shot hit
    a leg as opposed to the torso area.
    However, the shot from the Subach ruptured a reaction mass tank built into the Zoloat's
    shin. Copiously venting reaction mass, the Zoloat lost control for a split second, and veered
    straight into one of Ahgama's shots, which finished what the Huckevine MkII had started in
    spectacular fashion.
    Cortana's voice echoed in Jay's mind, [Incoming!]
    Amongst the fire coming at the attacking suits, Jay could see little grappling hooks,
    glowing from within, fan out like tendrils and claw through space, looking to ensnare his
    Huckevine. He sighted, made a little correction, and fired his Subach again. This time,
    however, that shot punched right through the center of the Zoloat's mass, less than a meter
    above the cockpit. The reactor went supercritical almost instantly, consuming the Zoloat in a
    nuclear fireball before the grappling hooks could reach their target. Suddenly deprived of
    their control mechanisms, the grapples dissipated into the void of space.
    Tenente McCauley could hardly believe it. He had expected some Minovsky interference
    from the ship as his team closed in, even the Ready-5 mech that launched and took down
    Sottotenentes Marvell and Hutch, but how could he have missed that FemmeMech before it showed
    up on his lidar screen? By the time that happened, there was nothing he could do except
    figuratively take it up the tailpipe. And retreat was not an option, not for an officer of
    the BESPA. McCauley had seen too many beheadings and "exiles" for that. The only way out of
    this was through the path of most resistance. He locked on to the mech in front of him and
    triggered his beam string launcher...
    "Oh, you did -not- shoot that silly string at me!" Jay growled as he whipped the
    Huckevine through a snap-roll, looking to evade the grapples. Unfortunately for Jay, this
    driver had more practice with that weapon. No sooner than Jay brought his Subach to bear did
    the grapples embed themselves into the Huckevine's right arm and both legs, drawing them
    tight around the PT's body as the strings pulled taut.
    It's official, Jay thought. I'm in trouble.
    Quattro burned straight for the unknown mobile armor, with Camille at his heels.
    Something about this didn't feel quite right, though. The closer he got, the more intense the
    under-pressure sensation became. It was almost as bad as it was seven years ago, during a
    knock-down drag-out fight at A'bao'a'qu with an enraged Amuro Ray. Jay probably had it right
    all along, he thought as he brought his beam pistol up to shoot. The yellow beam shot forth,
    like it always did.
    Only to miss by a good five meters as the mobile armor snap-rolled away with
    contemptous ease.
    Quattro couldn't believe it. He didn't -ever- miss. Not that badly.
    Scirocco smiled thinly. He had a feeling about who the pilot of that red MS was. The
    feeling he got as it got closer confirmed it.
    I know who you are, he thought. Now it gets interesting.
    "And so it begins, Char!" he shouted, firing a double salvo from his missile pods.
    [This is not an improvement.]
    He had to agree with Cortana's assessment of the situation. With his Huckevine's rifle
    arm strapped to his body by those strings, Jay had no shot. And that mech wasn't going to
    oblige him by getting in vulcan range. The Zoloat drew its beam rifle and aimed it dead
    center.
    [Do we have the Gravity Wall yet?] Jay sent frantically.
    [Negative. These wires are interfering with the generation process. Whatever you do, I
    suggest you do it fast!]
    [Wait a minute... I wasn't thinking.] He tabbed over to another weapon. [I swear, I'd
    lose my head it if wasn't attached...]
    [You've also been awake for over 20 hours, with 3 combat sorties in the same period,
    including this one. Given your relative lack of experience with extended deployments, this
    was to be expected.]
    [That too.]
    The comm window opened again, this time revealing a baroque shield with a wreath under
    it, bearing the letter Z. The pilot's face, concealed by his visor, leered at Jay. "Anything
    to say before I send you to Hell?" the pilot asked gruffly.
    Jay answered with one of his crooked half-smiles.
    "Chakram Shooter, mutha fugga!"
    McCauley looked on in horror as a disk shot through space from the mech he thought he
    had immobilized. Before he could even pull the trigger for his beam rifle, the disk sawed
    through the barrel like it was made of butter and narrowly missed his Zoloat's head. The
    damage alarm howled as the cable the disk was attached to wound around the Zoloat, making the
    disk dig into its waist. A section of the pilot's compartment began to glow as the disk sawed
    through, and the Zanscare officer saw he was doomed. He said the only appropriate thing for
    an officer of the BESPA to say in such situations.
    "Vive la regina Maria! Vive Zans--"
    And then he could say no more.
    ['Chakram Shooter, mutha fugga'?] Cortana wondered, her puzzlement obvious from her
    expression. [I've heard of 'go', 'ike', or even 'hasshin', but this is the first time I've
    ever heard that used for the voice-activated trigger.] Her icon shrugged. [You are now
    officially punchy.]
    "Are you all right?" the blonde asked as she thrusted over to the entangled Huckevine.
    "Just a little tied up right now," Jay replied, "but I'm ok."
    "Oh, that's right!" Cortana said, as if she remembered something. "This is Jay Denton,
    my pilot. Jay Denton, I'd like you to meet Ryuune Zoldark."
    "Zoldark?" Jay asked. "As in Dr. Bian Zoldark?" Dr. Zoldark was the founder of the
    Divine Crusaders, believing that the crashed spacecraft on the Atalia island chain (which
    resulted in the treaty of the similar name that ended the One Year War) was the vanguard of
    an imminent alien invasion.
    A shadow cast itself across Ryuune's face for half a second. "Yeah," she said,
    suppressing her momentary angst by sheer force of will. "I'm his daughter."
    "Pleased to meet you," Jay said. "What brings you all the way out here?"
    "Oh," Ryuune replied breezily as she cut the Huckevine loose, "I was in the
    neighborhood and thought you could use a hand."
    "Well, if you're not too busy, there's one more bad guy out here."
    Ryuune grinned ferally and nodded once. "Then what are we waiting for?!"
    The two mecha turned and thrusted towards the distant firefight.
    Quattro thrusted like crazy to get away from the roiling storm of missiles. He twirled
    around and put a single shot from his beam pistol into a grouping, hitting a missile squarely
    and causing it to detonate prematurely, taking a number of its fellows with it.
    Which left three more flights, coming in hot. They were just ordinary guided missiles,
    easily spoofed, but a great many just the same. After a few heavy manuevers, one flight ran
    out of fuel and exploded short of the red Rick Dias, followed by another. The last flight, on
    the other hand, was almost upon him.
    He knew the Rick Dias could take a couple of hits, but the mental pressure was telling
    him that he couldn't afford to take even one. He brought his beam pistol to bear, hoping to
    make one last shot that could destroy the volley like his first shot had done...
    When he saw a black shape dive in front of him.
    Quattro's eyes widened behind his helmet visor. "Camille..." he breathed.
    Scirocco had to salute the pilot of the black MS that the last flight of missiles had
    locked on to. Truly a noble gesture, albeit a futile one.
    As the explosions from the impacting missiles tore the eternal night, something pricked
    the edges of his perception, much like rocks being thrown into a pond and causing ripples.
    And he was getting two big ripples, in the form of new sources of pressure. The explosions
    cleared in time for him to regard the black Gundam, its shield cratered and smoking, but
    still active as it fired a blast from its beam rifle that struck the Messala on the outside
    of one of the sloped thrust pods.
    "Heh," Scirocco snickered. "Somebody actually hit me. Amusing." He checked his scopes
    at the same time he reached out with his mind, and not only felt the pressure from Char and
    the black Gundam, but from another unit entirely, thrusting to intercept. "Helios," he
    radioed, "I've overstayed my welcome."
    Helios's face appeared a split second later. "Acknowledged," he said.
    The AEUG needs to be chastised for this, Scirocco thought. But it would have to be done
    by those with the manpower to soak potential losses. Yes, those people would do nicely.
    For another persona resided within the body of the Jovian Tai-i, namely that of Titans
    Hauptmann Paptimus Scirocco. The JHDF had sent him to the inner planets as a liasion to the
    Titans, as part of an initiative to renew relations with the Earth. The Titans had responded
    by giving him a matching commission in their own forces (they named their field captains in
    Zeonic fashion). Seeing as how this attack was going nowhere, it was time to throw the
    organization that adopted him a bone. There was just one last thing to take care of here...
    For a brief moment, Jay had a vision of a dark cloud surrounding the unknown mobile
    weapon, with intermittent streaks of light running through it. Shaking his head and blinking
    his eyes, it appeared as normal, artfully dodging two beams before its throttle was driven to
    the firewall, quickly picking up speed as it hurtled straight for the Ahgama. Jay didn't even
    notice the "UNIDENTIFIED" on his target track window pulse for a second and change to
    "Messala", so engrossed was he in predicting where his target was going. The course it was on
    certainly left little to the imagination...
    He wasn't trying to ram the ship, was he?
    Henken saw the same thing. "Evasive action!" he shouted. "All hands, brace for impact!"
    Just before the Messala would have crossed the point of no return, it pulled up on a
    reciprocal heading from Ahgama's course, with both its beam cannons carving furrows into the
    great ship's starboard engine before its vector and speed took it clear of the engagement.
    "Damage report," Henken said, thankful the bastard didn't take a shot at the bridge
    while he wasn't wearing a pressure suit.
    "Fires in starboard engine block, sir," replied Miguel Torres, the helmsman. "Drive
    output down to 60%."
    "Dammit," muttered Henken. "A lightning-strike pass. He wasn't trying to destroy us,
    but cripple us instead."
    "Somebody get those fires out!" Quattro said as he led the vanguard back to the ship.
    "I'm on it," Reccoa Rondo said as she eased her Methuss alongside Ahgama, spraying fire
    retardant from a nozzle in her left hand actuator. The Methuss was a spindly little MS with
    comparatively large vambraces, pauldrons, and greaves, making it look like a little kid in
    the pre-diaspora Middle Ages trying on his father's armor. Because of the full suite of
    damage control tools it carried, the Methuss was classified as what was colloquially known as
    a NannyMech -- good for repairs and other support work, but by no means a frontline combat
    machine.
    Quattro punched up his hailing frequency. "White Base, this is Red Leader. Your skies
    are clear, last bogey's bugging out."
    "Acknowledged, Red Leader," came the reply. "And thanks."
    The day's frenzied pace of activity was taking its toll on Jay Denton. He could barely
    stay awake long enough to back the Huckevine into its hangar billet aboard Ahgama.
    "Are you all right?" Cortana asked.
    "I will be when I get some sleep," Jay half-mumbled through a cavernous yawn. Through
    his zoom window, he could see Ryuune walking the hangar deck, stretching her body as taut as
    a bowstring, with her hands clasped above her head and arms at full extension. Being
    something of an aesthete (to say nothing of being a healthy male human), he could've watched
    her all day, but his eyelids took this moment to gain five more pounds, reminding him of just
    how tired he was. "The thing is, I don't know if I can make it out of this chair..."
    In the days leading up to the Diaspora, Russian scientists had discovered a
    bio-feedback sequence that bypassed the other stages of the sleep cycle in favor of pure REM
    sleep. Using this sequence, eight hours of sleep could be compressed into two. Cortana knew
    the procedure, and she also figured Jay would raise sixteen flavors of hell when he found out
    he was slipped a neural-induced mickey. But she also knew that they weren't nearly out of the
    woods just yet. And their continued survival depended on his continued well-being.
    Muffled knocking came from the cockpit hatch. "Is everything all right in there?"
    Cortana found Astonage's suit radio frequency and replied, "Oh, just let the kid sleep.
    I'll keep an eye on him."
    "Ok, Cortana, we'll repair, rearm, and refuel as quietly as we can." Astonage replied
    with a bit of a chuckle.
    She looked back toward Jay, watching him slumber. He had already been through so much,
    she thought, and yet there will be much more to come. Of that she was certain. Whatever the
    accident had brought them together, it was in the past. For Jay Denton had been placed in her
    keeping, and while she couldn't protect him from all the slings and arrows of outrageous
    fortune, she would be there to ensure he didn't have to take up arms against the onrushing
    sea of troubles alone.
    It's official. No more Shakespeare for this girl, at least for a while, anyway.
    She bent over to Jay's ear, her icon at full size. "If there's anything you want --
    anything at all -- come to me," she whispered, quoting a song from one of Jay's mini-disks.
    "I'll be your guardian angel." The whisper produced no visible response from Jay, although it
    must be noted that his dreamscape became a little more pleasant.
    At length, Ryuune laid her Valcione's hand on the Huckevine's shoulder. Cortana opened
    a contact channel to her, sending her icon to appear in Ryuune's comm window. "What's so
    important that you have to get going right away?" she asked.
    "It's Father," Ryuune replied. "He's gone missing."
    "You're kidding," breathed Cortana in response.
    "He was out on a tour of Mars and that's all anybody's ever heard of him since. I was
    hoping somebody here might know more."
    "I don't know, Ryuune; relatively speaking, I just got here myself. I wish there was
    something I could do, but as it stands, my resources are rather limited. I'll keep you posted
    if I find anything."
    "Thanks. What's going on with your pilot?"
    "Oh, don't mind him. He's had a long day."
    "Aww," Ryuune said. "I was hoping to talk with him more. He sounded kinda cute."
    "He grows on you," Cortana replied with a trace of a smile.
    "Pretty good flying back there, kid," Sleggar said to Camille as he entered the launch
    bay aboard the Ahgama, where the evacuees from the White Base were being lined up in
    preparation for berthing aboard the other ships in the growing AEUG task force.
    "You were no slouch either," Camille replied. "Then again, you were a Legionnaire. This
    probably was a walk in the park for you."
    "Actually, I had to sit the first half out. I wish Amuro could've been here. He'd have
    handed those raiders their lungs. Oh well, at least we got the next best thing."
    Camille would have asked Sleggar what he meant by that, but a soft black-haired missile
    slammed into him with a cry of "CAMILLE!!!" Both people were sent flying into the
    microgravity of the launch bay and were free-floating by the time Camille was able to hold
    her at arm's length to see who she was. "Fa?" he asked, as if he was waking from a dream.
    "I never thought I'd see you again," Fa said, burying her face into Camille's shoulder.
    They held each other in silence until inertia carried them to a high ledge, which Camille sat
    on. Fa picked this moment to completely break down, sobbing on Camille's shoulder. "Fa,
    what's wrong?" he asked.
    Fa sniffed. "The Titans arrested my parents," she managed between sobs, "on Colonel
    Ohm's direct orders."
    Camille was shocked. "Why would they do that?" he asked. "They've got nothing to do
    with this!"
    "They did it because you stole the Gundam MkII, and I--" Fa said before grief overcame
    her once again.
    Camille did the only thing he could do in this situation. He sat there, holding Fa
    while thinking black thoughts towards the Titans. Presently, his ruminations ventured into
    more familiar territory, momentarily interrupting his brooding.
    If they could detain Fa's parents because she's my friend, then what could they do to
    my own?
    Both Camille's parents were with the Titans' SciTech Division -- his father being a MS
    designer, while his mother was a metallurgist. Their marriage was currently on the rocks, and
    both of them immersed themselves in their work, leaving Camille to fend for himself most
    nights. It had been that way ever since Hilda Vidan found out her husband was cheating on
    her. Rather than go through messy divorce proceedings -- which she had every right to do, in
    Camille's opinion -- she stayed with him.
    Despite a home life that came straight from one of Jerry Rivers's more lurid shows, the
    thought of the Titans detaining his parents troubled Camille more than the news he had
    recently received.
    Yuko Hashimoto paced around a round, grey room, featureless save for the low ceiling,
    the light globes placed equidistantly around the room's diameter, ventilator grilles (too
    small to crawl through) a couple feet below the globes, an armchair that was securely bolted
    to the floor, and the heavy door that faced the chair. She had been pacing around the room
    for the better part of five minutes, looking for some kind of way out. Of course, she
    thought, there's always another way out. Focus, girl, focus...
    She wasn't wearing her skinsuit. Instead, she was wearing some loose-fitting gray smock
    and trousers which resembled surgical scrubs. All she remembered after the escape pod
    launched was waking up in this room, dressed in this getup. She was slightly relieved to
    discover that no liberties had been taken with her, but that did nothing to help her out of
    this predicament. She stopped at the door and took a side kick at where she guessed the latch
    would be, but it held. She lunged at it, trying to shoulder it open, with no results. She had
    taken to banging on the door with her fists when a calm, level, almost bored voice called out
    in Japanese over the loudspeaker, "Please stop that, Hashimoto-san. You'll hurt yourself if
    you persist, and we cannot allow that."
    "Why not?" Yuko replied, her eyes darting around the room looking for the speaker.
    "We have our orders."
    "From who?" Silence. "I'm waiting..." The silence stretched. Yuko took a few more
    steps. "Who gave you those orders?"
    "We're not at liberty to discuss that, Hashimoto-san. Surely you must know that by
    now."
    She flung her arms out to her sides in a plaintive gesture. "What do you want from
    me?!"
    "We want to know what you remember after escaping the EMS Marathon."
    "I told you a thousand times," Yuko replied, her annoyance readily apparent, "I don't
    remember anything."
    "Do you remember a Jason, or Jay, Denton?"
    Yuko planted her fists on her hips and rolled her eyes. "I have no idea who you're
    talking about. This whole line of questioning is pointless, anyway."
    "Your vital signs suggest you're being somewhat less than honest," the voice replied,
    its tone shifting from solictious to accusatory. "In fact, you're just trying to avoid any
    further discomfort, for yourself or anyone else, by telling us what you think we'd like to
    hear."
    "Look, I said I don't know this Denton character, and I don't remember what happened
    after the escape pod launched! I don't even know where I am -now-, except in some tiny stall
    which nobody wants to let me out of, trying to answer questions that you should know I don't
    have the answers to!"
    "-Don't think-, Hashimoto-san. Just tell us the truth."
    "Give it a rest already," Yuko growled.
    "What happened after your pod ejected from the Marathon?"
    "I don't remember."
    "Do you know a Jay Denton?"
    "I SAID I DON'T KNOW HIM!" She took a swing at the light globes, which resisted all of
    her attempts to break them. Ignoring the voice's pleas to stop, she went on to bang on the
    door, and kept banging on the door with her fists until gas billowed into the room from the
    vents. Yuko collapsed to the floor as the gas started to take effect, her enraged screams
    dying on her lips as she lapsed into unconsciousness.
    At length, the door opened to admit a rating, wearing a full-face gas mask with his
    upper-body clamshell armor that had a reversed S-like glyph on the left breast.
    "KT-1198," the voice said, "prepare the sample for transport."
    ------------
    From: Col. Bosque Ohm (COMOPSTAN)
    To: Hpt. Franklin Vidan, Titans SciTech Division
    Lt. Hilda Vidan, Titans SciTech Division
    Subject: Current Orders -- Read Immediately
    Priority: Highest
    You are hereby requested and required to proceed aboard the Titan destroyer Alexandria
    (TTD-01), there to conduct extensive field studies on enemy mobile suits. You are to arrive
    at Docking Bay 2, Gripps 2, no later than 1730 hours today.
    ------------
    ***
    There's something happening here
    What it is ain't exactly clear
    There's a man with a gun over there
    Telling me I got to beware
    I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    There's battle lines being drawn
    Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
    Young people speaking their minds
    Are getting so much resistance from behind
    It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    What a field day for the heat
    A thousand people in the street
    Singing songs and carrying signs
    Mostly say, "Hooray for our side"
    It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    Paranoia strikes deep
    Into your life it will creep
    It starts when you're always afraid
    Step outta line, the man come and take you away
    We better stop, hey, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    We better stop, hey, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    We better stop, now, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    We better stop, children, what's that sound?
    Everybody look what's going down
    -- Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"
    Phase 3b: Ohm's Law
    ***
    Of all the words Jay Denton ever dreamed he'd see printed next to his name, "Wanted In
    Any Condition" ranked near the bottom of the list. It was the newspeak for "Wanted Dead Or
    Alive", and under the auspices of the Titans, had been seen on more than a few wanted posters
    out towards the Moon and the Vivarium-style colony cylinders of Side 3, on Luna's dark side.
    But hardly anyone referred to that place as Side 3 anymore, instead using the name that was
    coined almost twenty years ago: the Principality of Zeon. For the Titans to get anything done
    so close to the heart of Zeonic space, catering to bounty hunters or people willing to sell
    somebody out for a rich reward was necessary.
    Nevertheless, there it was, on a poster tacked to the White Base's bulletin board:
    "WANTED IN ANY CONDITION -- Jason Charles Denton", complete with a file photo taken of him
    for his Mao Industries ID badge. Jay was also surprised to find "Camille [NMN] Vidan" on a
    similar poster next to his.
    "Well, now," said a voice behind him. "Looks like you just got your fifteen minutes of
    fame." Jay turned around to regard a man taller than him, solidly built, with close-cut brown
    hair and a close-trimmed beard. His brown eyes always seemed to be squinting, even in the
    lowest light. He was dressed in an armored pressure suit, which marked him as a marine. He
    extended his hand. "Jim Raynor. I used to be an Outworld Marshal, now I command the marine
    detachment aboard the Ahgama." Noting Jay's apprehensiveness at the mention of his former
    occupation, he continued, "Don't worry, I'm not going to arrest you. The Major showed me the
    battle ROMs of your first sortie; I know you were set up."
    "Well," Jay replied, "you certainly don't wake up to find you've been declared a menace
    to society every day."
    "Actually, I'm here to take you back to the Ahgama. The Major wants to have a word with
    you."
    "If it's about the Fizz-Wizz in the shower head, I can explain--"
    "It's nothing as bad as you're thinking."
    "Good. I don't even -like- Fizz-Wizz."
    Raynor eyed Jay with a half-hearted dirty look. "Are you always this much of a
    smartass?"
    "Look," Jay answered, "it hasn't even been 24 hours since the Marathon was attacked.
    You have the day I've had, you'd be feeling a little punchy too."
    "Careful with that talk, Denton," Raynor replied sharply, all business. His tone
    lightened somewhat as he said, "You're beginning to remind me of me."
    "Here you go, Major," Raynor said as he stood aside to let Jay enter the pilots' ready
    room. "One Personal Trooper pilot, still breathing."
    "Thank you, Major," Quattro Bajina acknowledged.
    Jay looked back toward the marine commander with some confusion. "I'm as much of a
    major as he is," Raynor explained before he excused himself.
    The impromptu nap seemed to help Jay's spirits somewhat, Quattro thought. Jay had
    finally found some civvies aboard White Base, and was now wearing a blue and white striped
    flannel shirt over a black t-shirt for an obscure Descartes Dome band called Hangman's Joke,
    along with a pair of tan cargo pants.
    Camille asked, "I had read about Amuro Ray in several underground newspapers, before
    Green Noah 2 was made into a base. Do you suppose he's with the Titans?"
    Quattro shook his head. "If we knew where Amuro Ray -was-, we'd bring him in in a
    heartbeat. From what we've been able to piece together, the Federation's got him in the
    equivalent of a glass case that says 'Break Only In The Event Of A Hot War'. Given the
    Titans' recent activities, he's too much of a risk to be brought to the front lines.
    "But we are forgetting ourselves," he went on, turning to indicate Jay. "Come, sit."
    "Ok," Jay said as he sat down. "But if I hear anything like 'Remember, this is the
    Quickening', I'm outta here."
    "So, as I was saying before," Quattro said, picking up where he left off, "it appears
    the Gundam MkII is just a MkII -- a few improvements here and there, but nothing really
    worldshaking."
    "I heard my dad say he was looking to aggressively incorporate Zeonic technology into
    future MS designs," Camille said. "But this whole business seems so unreal. General Forra
    asked if I'd like to do this full-time. He even went so far as to say that most of the
    Thirteenth Independent Legion were about the same age as me when they got called up. But this
    whole Titans-AEUG conflict just isn't my fight." He pointed to Jay. "You, me, and now Fa...
    we all got caught up in it. My parents design and build stuff for the Titans. That's -all-
    they do."
    Jay reached down into the collar of his shirt. "Lemme show you something." He took out
    the photograph holder and showed it to Camille.
    "Nice," Camille noted. "Is she your girl?"
    "Her name was Yuko Hashimoto. We grew up not more than a couple blocks away from each
    other. I'd've really liked for you to meet her. Unfortunately, that's not possible..." He
    took a deep breath. God, he thought, this doesn't get any easier, does it? At length, he
    closed his eyes. "Because she was on the ship I was on when the goddamned Titans blew it out
    of the sky. And all because they wanted their grubby hands on what was inside. I was the only
    one who survived." He waggled the photograph holder for emphasis before he put it away. "This
    is all I have left to remind me of her. You may say that this isn't your fight until the sun
    explodes, but for me, it's personal."
    Camille sighed. "I had no idea," he breathed.
    "'Salright," Jay said.
    "Does the name 'Char Aznable' ring a bell?" Quattro asked.
    The apparent non sequitur caused both boys to blink.
    Camille broke the silence with a nod. "I respect him. He tried to bring down the Zabis,
    out of revenge for his own dead family. But he was a fool. He tried to do it all by himself
    and failed."
    "Yes," replied Quattro with a nod. "Yes, he did. His situation was not unlike the one
    you two are in now. But he also felt that getting his own personal feelings out in the open
    was the first step toward creating a better tomorrow. Not just for himself, but for
    everyone."
    "So that's why you asked us to come here," Jay said.
    "I still don't see how this has anything to do with me," Camille noted. "It's quite a
    big jump from 'opposing the Titans' to 'making the world a better place'."
    "Our actions all have an impact on the future," Quattro replied. "Whether we take an
    active role in its creation or not. The climate in the Earth Federation government has
    changed, and not for the better."
    "My uncle Morgan said something to me around the time the War started," Jay added,
    inserting his impression of his uncle's Neo-Gaelic (not exactly Irish, not exactly Scottish)
    accent that emerged when he was at home or felt strongly about something where appropriate.
    "He said, 'Jay, me boy, people are never more frightening than when they're quite convinced
    they're right.' I had no idea what he meant at the time; I mean, I was only eleven. For the
    longest time, I wondered what he was talking about." He took a deep breath. "I don't wonder
    about that anymore. It used to be because I had other things on my mind. But now? I finally
    understand what he was getting at."
    Quattro nodded. "Collective behavior can be scary. However, there's an undercurrent
    that I believe your uncle missed. Zeon Daikun called it 'the gravity well'. It's doubtlessly
    been called by other names in the past, but what it is..." He took a drink of water. "It's a
    spiritual sickness, for lack of a better term. Can you believe that humanity's top scientists
    once believed that the Earth was the center of the universe? And anybody who dared disagree
    back then was labelled as a heretic, imprisoned, or otherwise cast out of society. Even now,
    given that the Earth still has many wounds it needs to heal from generations of thoughtless
    industry, there are still those who, in their own way, see the Earth as the center of the
    universe. Except they see it as a crown jewel or a seat of power; something to lord it over
    the masses with. There's perfectly good colonizable living space everywhere else, but people
    still look towards Earth.
    "Zeon Daikun postulated that this was so because the Earth's gravity was holding the
    very souls of people to it."
    "What difference does -that- make?" Camille asked. "Like people's souls are any of my
    business! You can't expect me to die for something as nebulous as people's souls!"
    "What -would- you die for?" Quattro asked.
    Camille didn't have an answer for that. He sat there, lost in thought. After a while,
    he asked, "Why do you fight?"
    Quattro shrugged. "I'm good at it. Certainly not much good at anything else, that's for
    sure. Otherwise, I'd probably have a wife waiting for me back home." He would have gone on,
    but the intercom phone rang. Picking it up out of years of ingrained habit, he said, "Major
    Bajina."
    "You'd better get down to the hangar," Henken said. "We've got three suits coming in on
    an intercept vector."
    "Configuration?"
    "Titans." A pause. "You'd better see this for yourself."
    "So," Brex Forra said from his post alongside the center seat, "they intend to parley."
    "That's what it looks like, sir," Miguel Torres said as he looked at the magnified view
    at a Gundam MkII and two Hizacks (the Federation's high-thrust version of the venerable
    Zaku), with the Gundam flying a white flag.
    "Achilles One to Ahgama, come in," a female voice said over the radio.
    "We read you, Achilles One," replied Lou Caesar, Ahgama's aeroboss.
    "I have a communique from Colonel Bosque Ohm, for Brex Forra."
    "Copy that, Achilles One. Be prepared to surrender your sidearm on landing."
    The Gundam MkII alighted on the launch catapult, but did not enter the hangar. A
    lithesome form in a black pressure suit floated down from the open hatch to the deck. "Be
    advised," the pilot said as she withdrew her sidearm slowly, "that if anybody but myself
    approaches this Gundam, my escort will consider it a hostile act."
    "She came alone?" Raynor asked through helmet-to-helmet contact, giving voice to
    Quattro's thoughts. "She's got guts, I'll give her that."
    Quattro nodded as the pilot presented her pistol butt-first to Jim Raynor, who then
    ejected the clip and racked the slide back before putting it in his pressure suit's cargo
    pocket and handing the clip to one of his assistants. The marine pocketed the clip before
    opening the personnel airlock, which the side party then proceeded through.
    Numerous whispered murmurings greeted the side party as they walked deeper into the
    corridors of the ship.
    "She came by herself?"
    "Oh man, she's -fine!-"
    "You're wasting your time, Belfour! She's a Titan, through and through!"
    Emma looked over toward the blue-haired youth standing in a junction as the party
    passed by it, wondering if she knew him from somewhere.
    "Camille," Jay asked as he floated over to the gathering crowd in the corridor, "who's
    Snow White?"
    "That's Lieutenant Emma Sheen," Camille replied.
    "You sound like you know her."
    "Kinda. I don't think she remembers me or the meeting, though."
    "Whatever. I'm hungry. You want anything?"
    Camille shook his head and watched the side party until it disappeared around the
    corner.
    "The Colonel," Emma said as she tucked a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear,
    "would appreciate a reply soonest." She, along with the triumvirate of Ahgama's senior
    command staff, had gathered in the wardroom, where Bright Noah was already waiting. Right
    now, Emma was proud of herself for not showing any visible reaction to Bright's presence.
    Brex took the communique, extracted it from the envelope, and started to read. Within a
    few seconds, his hands started quivering as if he wanted to strangle the communique's author.
    He handed the communique off to Henken, who read it before passing it along to Bright. While
    this was going on, the commander-in-chief of the AEUG took a few breaths, counted to ten, and
    then asked, "Lieutenant, are you familiar with the contents of this message?"
    "No, sir. I was instructed to deliver it to you."
    "Your diligence is commendable," Bright said as he passed it along to Quattro, "but I
    assure you that if you had read the message, you would not be so blase."
    Quattro scanned it for a few moments before looking at Brex with a questioning look,
    which the latter returned with a nod. He then handed the communique to Emma, who began to
    read silently at first, but started subvocalizing shortly thereafter, her volume rising the
    further down the page she got:
    From: Colonel Bosque Ohm, Titans
    To: General Brex Forra, AEUG
    You are to return the Gundam MkII prototype immediately, along with the individual who stole
    it, a Camille Vidan of our mutual acquaintance. Arrangements for the return shall be made
    through the bearer of this communique.
    If the Gundam MkII and subject Vidan are not returned within one hour of receipt of this
    communique, we are prepared to execute the parents of subject Vidan. I strongly urge you to
    not let your pride sign their death warrants.
    END COMMUNIQUE
    Emma looked up at the assembled men, her eyes wide in horror, her face drained of
    color. "Oh my God," she breathed.
    "Altogether," Brex said flatly, "shameless, brutal, high-handed, and in all respects
    everything I've come to expect from the Titans."
    Emma was still in shock. "This can't be..."
    "With all respect to you, that ultimatum sounds like it came from a two-bit mob boss
    rather than a military officer!"
    "No professional army would ever draft such terms..."
    "That's because the Titans aren't run like a professional army, but rather a private
    one."
    "I still remember my oath to the Federation," Emma retorted firmly, holding Bright
    Noah's gaze pointedly as she said it. "Nowhere in it was an oath of personal loyalty to the
    Colonel."
    "Perhaps it is something of a misnomer," Brex continued. "The Titans are not beholden
    to a single man, but to a set of rules -- drafted by men whose souls are bound to Earth's
    gravity well, unable to fly freely!"
    "Not even the Zeeks went this far," Henken concurred.
    "Still," Quattro pondered, "if I may play devil's advocate here, it may be a bluff."
    Brex sat down in the wardroom chair. "I assure you, Major, that this is no bluff. If I
    know anything about Bosque Ohm, it's that he's crazy enough to do this."
    "I concur," Bright added. "He likes to think that he's never wrong." He tested the
    bandage on his forehead. "Empirical research would bear this out."
    "Somebody's going to have to sit on Camille and Jay," Quattro replied. "If they get
    wind of this, there's no telling what they'll do."
    An Earth Federation Navy wag whose name is lost in the mists of antiquity once said
    that the only thing that travels faster than rumors aboard ship is light. Two of Jim Raynor's
    marines stationed outside the wardroom couldn't help but overhear as the conversation within
    became more and more heated. One of them ostensibly excused himself to make a "head call".
    From there, the word spread.
    The Titans have hostages.
    Jay was eyeing the admittedly slim pickings in the caf's vending machines with some
    distaste. He had apparently missed the regular serving hours, because the shutters were
    already closed over the counter and serving line. And here he was, with no cash to his name.
    Who puts coin-operated vending machines in starships? he wondered. They were working on
    getting him a credit chit, but that hadn't materialized yet. He was just about to resign
    himself to tightening his belt when a door near the galley proper opened and a petite girl in
    skirt and school sweater started to wheel out a cart laden with to-go boxes. "Mind if I have
    one?" he asked.
    She turned to stare at him. "These are for the crew," she said.
    "Ok, bad start." He scratched the back of his neck rather sheepishly. "My name's Jay,
    and I drive that Huckevine MkII you may have seen while boarding."
    "Well, why didn't you say so?" she asked as she took a box off the cart and handed it
    to him.
    He had just started digging into the noodles and chatting up the server girl when
    somebody else came into the caf, heading toward the galley door. "Did you hear about the
    hostages?" he asked just a little too loudly. "Turns out they're that kid's parents!"
    Fa turned white. She turned toward the door, the lunch cart forgotten.
    Her reaction was not lost on Jay Denton. "Excuse me," he said, drawing her attention
    back to him as he picked up the biscuit, "but I have work to do."
    "God damn that man," Astonage Meddoso spat. He turned to one of his crew chiefs. "Rafe,
    did you get all that?"
    "Yeah," Rafael Esquivel answered. "But how can they be hostages?"
    Astonage took one of Rafe's arms and steered him out of the room into a vestibule.
    "Because they're Camille's parents, that's why!" he whispered harshly, nodding once in the
    direction of the blue-haired kid trying to chew the edge of his thumbnail through a pressure
    suit.
    "Now get that Gundam ready!" Astonage said in a normal tone of voice as the two
    technicians left the corridor for the hangar.
    Camille looked up. "Hostages?" he muttered.
    "Yeah," a passerby said. "They're related to that kid..." The passerby's voice trailed
    off as he realized who he was talking to.
    "Is this true?" Camille asked, a plaintive expression on his face.
    "Captain, I've got a strange lidar contact off the port bow," Torres's voice said over
    the intercom.
    "What is it?" Henken asked.
    "Hard to tell what it is, though. Maybe some sort of capsule."
    "On the wardroom screen."
    The picture resolved into a klaster-walled cylindrical capsule, with a small
    manuevering engine at its base. What was inside was indistinct, but vaguely human in shape.
    "I'm on my way, Torres. Deploy a camera probe."
    "Aye, sir."
    In a Hizack designated Achilles Four, Jerrid Messa broke out an envelope he had been
    told not to open until the capsule was in sight. For what he had been told at the briefing,
    that capsule contained enough explosives to destroy a Salamis-class cruiser. He opened the
    envelope and began to read.
    From: Cdr. Jamican Dannigan
    To: Lt. Jerrid Messa
    Subject: Current Orders
    You are to DESTROY repeat DESTROY the capsule if hostile forces make ANY attempt to retrieve
    it.
    "Aye aye, Commander," Jerrid said. "I won't let you down!"
    Lou Caesar plied the imaging controls for the feed from the camera probe, not believing
    what he was seeing. "Captain," he reported, "there's somebody in there!"
    Brex turned to Emma. "Now do you understand, Lieutenant?" There's just enough room for
    one in there, he thought. Not putting all your eggs in one basket, Bosque? Of course. That
    one's so elementary even -you- can grasp it.
    "That's impossible," Emma said. "That's gotta be a hologram, or some kind of electronic
    camera trick, or something..."
    "No, Bosque Ohm is not that subtle."
    "Get Camille up here," Henken said. "Let him identify whoever it is in there."
    "Camille Vidan, to the bridge on the double!"
    By the time that announcement was made over the ship's intercom, Camille was already
    heading through the last airlock door into the hangar. As the techs were already absorbed in
    other tasks, it was hardly a problem for him to float over to the cockpit of his Gundam.
    Powering it up with practiced ease, he said, "Gundam MkII deploying!"
    Before anyone else could say anything, the AEUG icon showed up in his comm window, to
    reveal Jay's helmeted face. "Apparently," he said, "they also serve those who stand and
    design stuff."
    "Don't try to stop me, Jay," Camille said. "My mother's out there, and I'm going to
    bring her back." Although he had not seen the capsule yet, he somehow knew with every fiber
    of his being that the person in the capsule was his mother.
    "I know. I've got the feed from the camera probe right here."
    "Then what are you doing here?" Camille asked, his Gundam reaching for its beam rifle
    located on the bulkhead rack.
    "Flying your wing, what does it look like I'm doing?"
    "Why are you doing this? You hardly even know me."
    "Because you fly off this ship. Because I don't stand for senseless cruelty. Because
    I've lost family before, and I'll be damned if I let anybody lose theirs while something
    could be done about it. Because if you bite the big one out there, I'm going to be the one
    who has to explain it to Fa. Pick one."
    Camille looked Jay in the eyes for a second or two before saying, "All right. Just
    don't get in the way."
    "I'll keep the buzzards off you."
    As both mecha poised themselves at the hangar doors, Jay couldn't help wondering when
    and where he'd started being the wise elder brother type.
    "I say we remove those Hizacks from my sky and then set up the exchange," Brex said.
    "Are you sure you want to provoke them like that?" Quattro asked.
    "General, we can't fight against two warships with only one engine!" Reccoa Rondo
    added. "I say we should just agree to the terms, like the Major said before."
    "I'm not about to give Bosque Ohm the satisfaction of having us dance to his tune for
    even one second," Henken growled.
    Caesar wheeled toward the center seat. "Hangar reports both the Gundam MkII and the
    Huckevine MkII have powered up and are proceeding to launch positions!"
    Quattro bit short a particularly vile German oath and ran for the hangar, Emma hot on
    his heels.
    [Ok, Cortana,] Jay sent, [what are we up against?]
    [Two Hizacks, designating as Taurus Wing.]
    [Is that all? Can we disarm them?]
    [Unlikely. In addition to the longarm and melee weapons, there's a 3-tube short range
    missile pack on each hip. You'll need more than one shot to do what you're thinking, and they
    could light a few flares for reinforcements.]
    [Take them hard and fast then?] Cortana nodded. Jay hit the play button on his
    mini-disk player, smiling his crooked smile. [Suits me just fine.]
    # Dropkick Murphys "The Gauntlet" _Sing Loud, Sing Proud_
    Camille had left first, through the port hangar door. Both the Hizacks of Taurus Wing
    turned to look at his Gundam MkII. As such, it took their pilots approximately three to four
    seconds to recognize that
    1) No rendevous signal had been sent
    2) Lieutenant Sheen had not approved this launch
    3) That particular Gundam MkII was stopping for nothing
    Their first impulse was to fire warning shots at the Gundam MkII with their
    autocannons, which the Gundam MkII deftly avoided with milliseconds to spare. However,
    Camille's attention was firmly fixed on the capsule in the distance.
    Fortunately for him, being the focus of the Hizack drivers' attention left them
    blissfully unaware of the Huckevine MkII that had floated out from the starboard side door.
    And Jay Denton had no qualms about shooting Titans in the back. The first clue any of them
    had regarding the Huckevine MkII's deployment came in the form of a bolt of amethyst energy
    striking one of them in the back, tearing through the thruster pack. Liquid helium reaction
    mass spilled like blood as the explosion spread into the heart of the machine, deep-freezing
    the main power coupling before concussive force shattered it. The bolt's exit wound had
    missed the reactor, but the Hizack was rendered lifeless just the same.
    By now, the remaining Hizack driver in Taurus Wing had realized that a bigger threat
    lurked right behind him, and wheeled around to engage this new enemy. But Jay had already
    kicked in the boosters, immediately coming parallel to the Hizack. The Titan let loose a
    long, rolling burst from his autocannon, but the shells might as well have been hailstones
    for all the damage they did.
    "Urrrf," Jay grunted from being rattled around in the cockpit. "Fuggoff. Chakram
    Shooter, go!"
    The chakram obediently shot forth and wrapped itself around the Hizack's waist. Jay
    wasn't waiting to see it, though. He boosted after Camille, dragging the Hizack behind him
    for about ten meters until the chakram sawed it cleanly in half. Both halves drifted off into
    the eternal night, electricity arcing from the wounds.
    "Is there any indication that those Hizacks were Yugoes?" Lieutenant Lyla Mirra Laila,
    leader of Luna Two Defense Wing 27, asked. She used the derisive term for AEUG members that
    was already making the rounds through the EFN, which in turn was the result of somebody
    trying to pronounce the acronym as a single word as opposed to each letter individually. When
    it was discovered that there was a dinky little pre-Diaspora car called the Yugo, the name
    stuck.
    "There shouldn't be," Lieutenant (jg) Eddy Gordon answered. Wing 27 and its mothership,
    the Salamis-class cruiser EFC Bosnia, had tracked this bogey coming from Side 7 hours ago and
    had now come close enough to investigate. The fact that they came along to see the end of a
    running gun battle made things a little more complicated.
    "'Shouldn't be' isn't good enough," Lyla replied. "Were those Hizacks Yugoes? Yes, or
    no?"
    "Negative on Yugo Hizacks, ma'am," Eddy said.
    "Thank you," Lyla nodded. "We'd better see what they were, now, shouldn't we?"
    [Oh, now -this- will be interesting,] Cortana sent. [Three Galbaldy-class suits coming
    in, EFN configuration.]
    The comm window soon showed a spinning Earth Federation Navy icon, before another
    pressure-helmed face replaced it. "Unidentified Personal Trooper," a woman's voice said,
    "this is Luna Two Defense Wing 27, from the Earth Federation cruiser Bosnia. You are ordered
    to stand down and cease hostilities immediately. Failure to comply will result in the use of
    deadly force."
    "If I had five credits for every time I've heard that line today," Jay replied in a
    bored voice, "I'd be eating supper at the Dempsey's on Gateway Station."
    "Who is this?" the woman asked, letting her voice show her irritation at this insolent
    pilot.
    "Are you sure you want to know? I've got no quarrel with the Federation, but as far as
    I'm concerned, the Titans can go straight to Hell."
    "If you do not identify yourself immediately, you will -definitely- have a problem."
    "My name is Jay Denton, and might I submit--"
    "We have nothing further to discuss, -terrorist-."
    "You don't -want- any of me," Jay replied, but the comm window cut off.
    [Galbaldys locking on. Designating as Aries Wing.]
    [Boring conversation anyway,] Jay answered, mentally shelving his observations on the
    availability of decaffienated coffee blends. Dragon Lady wasn't going to be in the mood to
    hear them anyway.
    # William Orbit "Barber's Adagio For Strings (Ferry Corsten mix)"
    _Pieces In A Modern Style (bonus CD)_
    Jay feverishly tried to recall everything he ever knew about the Galbaldy-class MS. It
    was designed as the next step up from Zeonic Company GmbH's vaunted Gelgoog-class (and owed a
    lot of its styling to the Gelgoog), but the War ended before it ever made it past the
    prototype stage. The rights to the design were later purchased by the Terran Aerospace
    Consortium, but the Beta revision that was ultimately released only caught on with the Luna
    Two Defense Corps. Those three then split off and came screaming in from various directions,
    their beam rifles blazing away. Jay whirled away from the fusillade and answered it with a
    shot from the Subach PR-7, which the lead Galbaldy nimbly dodged around.
    "Damn," Jay muttered, "this chick's good."
    "Look who finally decided to show up," Jerrid mused as the Personal Trooper that had
    played no small part in reducing Hector Squad to so much scrap metal became locked in a big
    hairy furball. That pilot was getting no less than what than he deserved, Jerrid was sure. He
    allowed himself a few words of ribald praise for the EFN and checked his scanners again.
    Wasn't that Unit 3 burning straight for the capsule?
    As he sighted in on the capsule using the "iron sights" of his autocannon, he could
    think of one explosive volatile enough to detonate when struck by autocannon rounds:
    pentaglycerine. That much would not only wipe out the capsule, but destroy anything close to
    it as well.
    "That's it, Yugo," he muttered. "Just a little closer..."
    Bosque Ohm turned around in his seat at the sound of the bridge door opening to regard
    a stocky, tow-headed man in a business suit. "If this is about the Gundam MkII, Colonel," he
    said, "then why don't we just let them have it? It's not like it's our -best- design, after
    all."
    "Your candor is as unwelcome as your presence on this bridge, Hauptmann Vidan."
    Franklin Vidan would have argued further, but a reading at the electronic emissions
    station (which handled both sensors and comms) caught his eye, and he walked over to have a
    look. "What is this?" he asked.
    "A mission in progress," answered Jamican Dannigan from his place near the weapons
    station.
    Franklin's eyes widened as the capsule caught his eye... It couldn't be--!
    As much as Camille adored his mother, there were times when he wished she didn't put
    herself into predicaments like this. Sure, she was military, and she knew the risks, but
    metallurgy was considered a relatively safe specialty. And even if she was posted to a ship,
    such analysis was usually done in the friendly confines of a hangar bay. There was no reason
    for her to be out here like this!
    He got most of his looks from his mother, namely her hair, her eyes (which had been
    described as "dreamy"), and her chin. She was still in her utility dress uniform, her eyes
    wide in shock. She tried to say something, but klaster walls do not conduct sound very well,
    to say nothing of deep space, and Camille couldn't read lips.
    Hang on, Mom, I'll get you out of there...
    Still no lock with the Chakram Shooter! Jay thought as his pas de deux with Lyla Mirra
    Laila continued. This Gelgoog knockoff's a nimble one...
    Cortana took this moment to interrupt his ruminations. [I've got an enemy powerup,] she
    sent, [150 meters from the capsule! Designating as Taurus Three!]
    [How far away are we?]
    [Ten seconds until we get it in Subach rang-- It just locked on to the capsule! He must
    have been in Go-To-Ground mode!] Go-To-Ground mode was a special function of most military
    and paramilitary avionics suites, which shut down all sources of medium- and high-energy
    emissions and cut reactor power dramatically. When combined with Minovsky particles, GTG mode
    could make an aerofighter or mobile suit invisible to all attempts at electronic detection.
    Perfect for setting ambushes.
    Jay realized this broad he was fighting wasn't going to let him get that new contact.
    He did the only thing he could do. He keyed his radio, potential Minovsky interference be
    damned:
    "CAMILLE, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! IT'S A TRAP!"
    "See you in Hell, Unit 3!" Jerrid growled as his finger tightened around the trigger on
    his joystick.
    # (2:14 in music cue)
    A storm of autocannon shells erupted around the Gundam MkII and the capsule, just as
    Camille had the capsule within his reach. The bullets pockmarked the Gundam's armor, but did
    no appreciable damage.
    However, a fair number of rounds hit the capsule, making spiderweb cracks in the
    klaster. As the damage accumulated, the cracks lengthened before the klaster eventually
    shattered, immediately opening the capsule to space; which in turn caused its occupant to
    convulse as the breath was forcefully sucked from her lungs. The shell, its momentum unspent,
    blew out a significant chunk of her right side before bouncing off the Gundam's armor.
    Camille stared at the unfolding tableau with a stricken expression. He could still
    retrieve his mother if he wanted to. But it would do no good, for the life was already being
    squeezed from Hilda Vidan's body by the cold, unrelenting embrace of the void. She required
    immediate medical attention, and even if Camille had the presence of mind to pop his hatch
    and stuff his mother's body inside the pilot's compartment, the wound from the autocannon
    round was too grievous for any form of first aid. She was effectively gone; lost to the
    ether, caught in hard vacuum. Lost forever. Gone.
    Tears flowed freely as he wailed like a soul in Hell, his world shattered by the
    knowledge that the one person he could honestly say he loved was no more.
    Jay could relate.
    It was as if somebody had pressed pause on the Remote Control For The Universe. On
    Ahgama's bridge, the mingled expressions on the occupants' faces wove a tapestry of shock,
    stoicism, and mute horror. In the hangar, where techs worked feverishly on prepping the Rick
    Diases, something brushed the edges of their collective perceptions, causing them to
    momentarily pause for a second or two. Even Jim Raynor and Emma Sheen, who were in the midst
    of their own impasse over whether or not she could leave the ship, stopped and turned their
    eyes towards the bow of the ship, and what lay beyond.
    Quattro Bajina felt the sensation more keenly than most of the people in the hangar.
    Perched at the hatch to his own Rick Dias, he stared straight at the spot he knew the AEUG's
    Gundam MkII to be occupying. It had been so long since he had seen a personal loss of that
    magnitude that he had half-forgotten what it felt like. This cruise of Ahgama had brought it
    all back, with interest.
    His eyes swept the hangar, noting the reactions of the crew. Privately, his estimate of
    Camille's Newtype potential went up a couple points. Then he turned and settled into the
    cockpit. Potential wasn't much good if the person who possessed it were to do something rash
    and end up getting killed.
    I can't have you going rogue on me now, Camille! he thought.
    Jerrid was the first to break the silence that had descended over the battlefield. "It
    didn't go off," he breathed. That much pentaglycerine should've cooked off! Could it have
    been loaded with C-17 instead of pentaglycerine? Just then, a palpable sense of grief mixed
    with foreboding washed over him, and he struggled in vain to pin down exactly what it was and
    where it was coming from. He had never felt such a feeling before in his life. The only thing
    that came remotely close was the feeling he got waiting outside the Colonel's office for
    getting Unit 1 wrecked...
    Stop thinking like that! he mentally chided himself. He looked up, hoping against hope
    that he had dealt a crippling blow to the Gundam MkII, but the slightly battered MS seemed to
    glare at him, as if to say, "You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind!"
    "Colonel," Franklin said as he whirled away from the emissions station to face the
    center seat, "did you send my wife out into a combat zone unprotected?"
    Bosque made a motion to the master-at-arms, who then had two of his security troops
    take up flanking positions behind the Hauptmann. "Think of it this way," Bosque said. "At
    least your shack-up will be a little more convenient."
    Franklin looked around the bridge, and saw most of the crew fix him with penetrating
    stares. A deep, overriding sense of shame filled him as the security men led him off the
    bridge. He had figured the Colonel had been Up To Something ever since he had received the
    order posting him to Alexandria. And now, for the mother of his child, it was too late to do
    anything about it.
    Jim Raynor's voice echoed over Ahgama's bridge intercom. "Looks like our guest's
    wanting to leave," he said.
    "It's all right," Brex replied. "Let her go."
    Raynor reached into his cargo pocket and gave the pistol he'd taken from Emma back to
    her. "Thank you," Emma said before she pushed off the balcony, aiming for the airlock door
    that had her own Gundam MkII behind it.
    And so she floated out of our lives forever, Raynor thought wistfully.
    Camille blinked away the last of the tears from his eyes, and checked his VirtuaCockpit
    display. There, within easy distance, was a single Hizack, with the remnants of smoke wafting
    away from the barrel of its autocannon. "You..." he growled.
    A tiny voice inside his head told him he shouldn't be doing this (or maybe it was the
    woman's voice that echoed over his radio?), but the hurt and the anger won out.
    His world dissolving into a red haze, Camille's scream of despair turned to one of rage
    as he redlined his thrusters, burning straight for the motherless bastard in the Hizack
    responsible for his pain.
    # Pantera "The Badge" _"The Crow" soundtrack_
    Camille had recovered enough of his wits to take a wild shot with his beam rifle, and
    danced out of the way of a frugally short burst from the Hizack's autocannon. But still, he
    kept boring in right on the enemy MS, looking to settle this the only way he knew would be
    anything close to satisfying: up close and personal.
    Inside the Hizack, Jerrid cursed as his pulls of the trigger proved fruitless. "Out of
    ammo?" he pleaded. He had a spare drum on him, but whether he'd be allowed to change the
    empty out was another question altogether. One that was soon answered in the resoundingly
    negative, as the Gundam charged into him, one hand pushing up under the Hizack's chin while
    the other grabbed at the autocannon, shoving it away.
    He's got me dead to rights, Jerrid noted, so why doesn't he fire now? A voice
    transmission soon followed:
    "You killed my mother, you son of a bitch!"
    Hurtling towards the donnybrook, Quattro opened the AEUG command frequency, hoping
    Camille was tuned into it. "Let him go, Camille!" he said.
    He then looked to see the Huckevine's hand on his Rick Dias's shoulder. "I'd stay out
    of this, Captain," Jay said. "If that Titan did what he just did to -my- mother, I'd be
    kicking his ass too."
    "We'll talk about this later," the officer answered icily. "Break right!" Both mechs
    split away from each other just in time to avoid a barrage of beams and autocannon rounds.
    [More bad news just thrusted in,] Cortana added. [Three more Hizacks, designating as Leo
    Wing.]
    [It never rains, but it pours,] Jay replied dryly. [Do we have any reinforcements?]
    [Scanning. Ask, and ye shall receive. Roberto and Apolli are inbound.]
    [ETA?]
    Two beams cut the inky black, causing the Hizacks to wheel away from the Huckevine
    MkII.
    [Would now do?] Cortana asked.
    "Jerrid!" Emma shouted over a comm window. "Don't fight back! That's just a kid in
    there!"
    With the Gundam MkII raining down punches on him, Jerrid thought that directive was
    just a little bit ludicrous. He managed to get a hand up to block and let fly with a left
    cross that knocked the Gundam MkII a couple of meters away from him. The Gundam hit its
    thrusters to stabilize itself and took a couple of beam rifle shots at the Hizack.
    Jerrid slipped by the shots, burning in on a charge of his own, but the elusive MS spun
    away from the charge, caught the Hizack by one of the boom-mounted verniers on its back, and
    proceeded to pistol-whip him!
    "Why did you have to kill her?" Camille asked over a contact transmission, letting his
    blows punctuate his words. "There was no! Need! To! Kill!"
    "I know that voice," Jerrid grunted as the force of the blows rattled him around inside
    the cockpit. "You're not gonna get the best of me again, you fuckin' faggot!" He lit his
    thrusters, and started throwing elbows into him, trying to get away.
    Camille struggled to match the Hizack's thrust output and keep his advantage, but he
    could already feel his grip starting to give out. Then he remembered that he had a Vulcan
    cannon in the head. He let a long, rolling burst go, punching holes in the head and shoulders
    of the Hizack as it tumbled away. Electricity arced from the holes as the MS righted itself.
    He let off another long burst, but the Hizack saw it coming and boosted out of the way,
    lining up for another charge. Camille pressed the Vulcan trigger again, except this time
    nothing happened. It was his turn to experience the heartbreak of running out of slug
    ammunition as the Hizack barrelled into him, leading with its right shoulder.
    Lyla grinned ferally as she lined up the scarlet Rick Dias for a beam rifle shot. "I
    have you now," she yelled over the radio, "you thieves of the AEUG!" She pulled the trigger,
    but the Rick Dias jetted out of the way at the last second. Could he really be the Red Comet
    after all?
    Then that Denton kid opened a comm window to her. "TM," he said.
    "What?!" Lyla replied, flabbergasted.
    "Come on," he said, "I can't believe you'd forget the trademark for the phrase,
    'thieves of the AEUG'. I expected an officer and a gentlewoman to have more sense of manners
    and propriety than you do."
    Of all the--! "Then die!" she spat as she sent a beam dead center into the Huckevine
    MkII, only to have it stopped by a field that flared brightly for a second. She fired again,
    with much the same effect. None of those shots had so much as damaged the paint on that PT!
    He looked at her with a disbelieving look on his face. "Lady," he asked, "are you out
    of your everloving MIND?!"
    "Look out, ma'am!" Eddy's voice cried over the radio as he flew his Galbaldy straight
    into the path of a beam shot aimed at her from the scarlet Rick Dias. The shot struck him
    center mass, causing it to drift for about a second before the reactor blew.
    Dammit, Lyla thought. If I can't get through that forcefield, and that red MS is
    picking off my wingmen...
    "Break off!" she heard herself say. "Break off! Enemy is superior, disengage and
    regroup!"
    Emma Sheen could hear the voice of one of her Academy instructors echo in her head as
    she watched the tussle between Jerrid and Camille: "Any resemblance between what you see now
    and real combat between mobile suits is purely coincidental." It resembled something along
    the lines of a rugby scrum or a hockey brawl, with two almost-evenly-matched parties
    jockeying for position and getting licks in whenever they could. And it looked like nothing
    Emma could say would make them stop any time soon.
    There's got to be more weapons on this thing, Camille thought as his eyes raced over
    the controls. He found a control that looked promising, so he pressed it. The Gundam MkII
    responded by drawing its beam saber with its shield arm and swinging it in a wide arc that
    knocked Emma's Gundam away with the shield. Which in turn let Jerrid throw a shoulder into
    Camille's Gundam, opening up the distance between them some more.
    As the fight continued, Emma got her Gundam under control just in time to be hailed by
    the regrouping L2DC unit. "Unidentified MS, this is Lieutenant Lyla Mirra Laila of Luna Two
    Defense Wing 27. Just what the hell is going on here?"
    "Wing 27, this is Titans Lieutenant Emma Sheen. Would you believe this is a retrieval
    operation for a stolen MS?"
    "Hardly."
    "This sort of fight does neither us nor them any good. I'd like to give the enemy some
    time to think this over."
    "That might be difficult, Lieutenant," Lyla sighed, "considering what's going on now."
    [The Captain's disengaging in the middle of a fight,] Cortana sent. [I find that highly
    irregular.]
    Jay turned the Huckevine MkII back toward the Ahgama, getting there just in time to see
    the Rick Dias set up a contact communication with the bridge. Jay set up his own contact on
    the other side.
    "It doesn't look good for us," Quattro said.
    Henken nodded. "Camille's gone completely native," he intoned.
    "Begging your pardon, but could you stay cool if your mother was brutally murdered
    before your eyes?" Jay asked.
    "It hardly matters at this point," Quattro responded. "We certainly can't control him,
    and he can barely control himself."
    Jay couldn't believe he was hearing this. "Jesus Christ, you're not going to just hand
    him over, are you?!"
    "I don't see how we have much choice."
    "And I don't see what's so difficult about keeping one of our own out of the hands of
    the enemy!"
    "There are over six hundred people aboard this ship," Brex intoned firmly. "I cannot
    jeopardize their lives to save one man. Now I advise you to hold your tongue, Denton. There
    is such a thing as 'conduct detrimental to the chain of command,' and you know the
    consequences of that as well as I do."
    [Great,] Jay sent sourly. [What next?]
    [Simple,] Cortana replied. [Respectfully analyze the situation, and present your own
    arguments. Bosque Ohm has a reputation for ruthless aggression. Include that as well. Above
    all, -be yourself-. You can do this.]
    Jay fought to get his emotions under control. "Permission to speak freely?" he asked.
    "Granted, as long as you don't try my patience."
    "We have the senior leadership of the AEUG on this ship, right?"
    Brex nodded. "Go on," he said.
    "If I was in Bosque Ohm's shoes and I was given the opportunity to decapitate the AEUG
    in one stroke, I'd take it. This whole negotiation is a bid on our part to buy time. You know
    it, I know it, and worst of all, -they- know it. And they figure as long as they're giving us
    time, they might as well try to take one of our better drivers out of the equation.
    "The fact of the matter is this: They are not just going to let us walk away, no matter
    what we do. And I'd rather have all our people here when they move on us, even the ones who
    don't yet realize that they're our people too."
    Silence reigned on the bridge as Brex digested Jay's arguments thoroughly.
    "There's something you haven't considered," Quattro said. "Lieutenant Sheen does not
    want to make a fight of this."
    "How can you be so sure?" Brex asked.
    "Believe me, General, I know from such things."
    "But to trust a Titan?!"
    "I trust individuals, not organizations. And right now, I trust her."
    "I'm afraid I agree with the Major on this one," Henken said. "We may be signing a pact
    with the Devil, but they're dealing the cards right now."
    "Then you might as well turn me in too," Jay replied.
    Stunned silence met his remarks. [Do you even know what you're saying?] Cortana sent.
    [He's liable to take you up on that offer.]
    [Let me finish.] "You said the AEUG needs all the help it can get, General Forra. But
    if we're just going to give up on Camille like this after all he's done for us, then I don't
    -want- to be a part of it." After a half-second's pause, Jay went on, "It's like I told the
    Major: if it was -my- mother, it'd be me kicking that Titan's ass instead of him. Then again,
    what do I know? I'm just some young, dumb civilian mecha pilot with a price on his head
    stemming from a trumped-up charge to cover up -their- aggression."
    Bright nodded, seemingly lost in thought. Quattro was the first to speak. "You honestly
    believe he can be salvaged?"
    "We may have to take turns beating the stupid out of him, but yes, sir, I do."
    "If it matters that much to you, then go pull him off that Titan before he does
    something irrevocable."
    "Consider it done." And with that, Jay redlined his thrusters and boosted toward the
    brawl in progress.
    "Major," Brex said after a few seconds.
    "Yes, sir?" Quattro answered.
    "See to it -all- our pilots come back. We've got an hour, we might as well use it."
    "Yes, sir. I'd better make our intentions known," Quattro said before he boosted away
    from Ahgama at a comparatively sedate pace, launching a series of flares from his left hand
    actuator.
    [I knew there was something I liked about you,] Cortana sent conversationally as the
    flares went off.
    [Not now, Cortana.]
    Cortana didn't comment any further. She could tell Jay had been pleased to hear that,
    in spite of everything else, and saw no need to gloat.
    "A cease-fire?" Lyla murmured as the flares detonated in a pattern she recognized.
    "They agreed to return the Gundam, then."
    The Hizack was already swinging its beam saber wildly by the time Jay got there. He
    didn't even stop to yell a challenge. One second, the Hizack was bringing the hand that held
    its beam saber back for a stroke. The second after that, it didn't even -have- a beam saber
    hand, having been neatly severed by the Chakram Shooter. "What part of 'cease fire' do you
    not understand?!" Jay asked.
    The Gundam MkII drew its own beam saber again, keeping the rifle in its right hand, and
    raised back to strike. Jay swiftly slipped his Huckevine's left arm under the corresponding
    arm on the Gundam MkII, bringing his own up and over the Gundam's shoulder while mounting the
    Gundam from the rear. He snaked his right arm around the Gundam's neck in the same motion and
    pulled tight.
    Camille knew enough judo to know what hold Jay had put on his Gundam MkII. While the
    katahajime was illegal in competitive judo, it was an ideal move for stopping a real fight.
    He didn't have enough range of motion in the hold to swing his beam saber properly, and as
    Emma's Gundam MkII came towards him from the front, he got the distinct impression that the
    Huckevine MkII could've shrugged off any damage he could inflict regardless.
    "Let me go, Jay!" Camille yelled, kicking the other Gundam MkII away. "I'm gonna
    fuckin' kill this fuckin' bastard!"
    "Not today, you won't," Jay replied grimly.
    "Camille Vidan!" Emma Sheen's voice broke sharply into the conversation like a handclap
    or a gunshot. "You said you were a man, but right now you're acting like a little kid!"
    "Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events," the blue-haired youth answered
    in a emotionally pained voice, "but my mother was murdered before my very eyes! How do you
    EXPECT me to feel about that?"
    Jerrid opened a comm channel. "Honestly," he said, "I had no idea your mother was in
    there..."
    "It's a little late for that now, isn't it?!" Camille shouted.
    Jerrid's expression hardened for a second before a mocking grin creased it. "You're
    still young enough to be suckling Mommy's tit. Damn shame."
    [Oh, that's good, Lieutenant,] Cortana sent sardonically, even though Jay was the only
    one who could hear her, [dig yourself a deeper hole, why doncha?]
    Camille gave an inarticulate grunt as he tried to break his Gundam free from Jay's
    grip. Emma's Gundam made shooing motions at Jerrid with its free hand, while inside, Emma
    favored Jerrid with an I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that look. Despite that, Jerrid
    continued to bait Camille. "Go ahead, hit me like you did at the port authority. Nothing
    between us but space and opportunity."
    Jay hailed the damaged Hizack. "You'd better quit while you're -behind-, soldier boy,"
    he said. He feathered his Huckevine's station-keeping thrusters, allowing Camille to thrust a
    meter closer to the retreating Hizack (and, in so doing, momentarily startling Emma) before
    he regained control over the clinch. "I won't hold him back forever."
    Jerrid snorted at Jay in derision. "You're gonna regret you ever stuck your nose into
    this."
    "I already -do-," Jay replied, nonplussed. "You're only gonna live through this because
    of the cease-fire. Remember that."
    Emma flipped back to her comm window to Camille and shook her head at him as if to say,
    'it's not worth it'.
    Inside the Gundam MkII, Camille's bloodlust broke like a fever. "It's all right, Jay,"
    he radioed. He swallowed hard and went on, injecting worlds of contempt into his words. "He
    was just a soldier, following orders. It wouldn't be fair to blame him if those orders came
    from madmen. And we all know who the better pilot was just now."
    "You little--" Jerrid grunted as he whipped his Hizack through a 180-degree turn, but
    Emma immediately moved to interpose her Gundam MkII between him and Camille. "Jerrid," she
    said, "it's over. They've already requested a cease-fire. There will be other times." She
    opened another comm channel, this time to the Bosnia's MS squadron leader. "Lieutenant, would
    you be so kind as to escort our man back to the Alexandria? I have to finish negotiating the
    return of the Gundam."
    Lyla nodded. "Sure, but wouldn't you rather have an escort? I can detach my wingman to
    you."
    "No, thank you, I'll be fine."
    "Suit yourself," Lyla said as she led Jerrid's Hizack back to the destroyer.
    "Don't mind him," Jay said to Camille as the Federation units flew away. "He's a joke.
    That's all he is."
    Camille didn't answer that, as he sat in his Gundam MkII behind a wall of silence.
    "I trust we won't be having any more of these outbursts," Emma radioed to Quattro.
    "Of course we won't," Quattro answered. "We did request the cease-fire, after all.
    However, I am worried about Camille's condition." He got up out of his seat and pulled the
    homoavis he normally carried out from under it.
    "Wait one. I'll go EVA with you to verify." She popped her hatch and floated over to
    Camille's Gundam MkII. Quattro was already banging on the inner hatch, having pulled the
    emergency outer hatch release earlier. After a few seconds, Quattro radioed, "Jay, see if you
    can't get him to open the hatch. He's locked himself in."
    "Sure thing. Come on, Camille, let us know you're alive. Enquiring minds want to
    know." No answer, except a small sob. "Captain, I think he's blown a microchip or something
    up here," he said, tapping on his helmeted head with a finger. "I'm going to try another
    way." [Cortana, can you get his hatch open?]
    [No sooner said than done.] The inner hatch opened silently a few seconds later.
    "Thanks, you two," Quattro radioed with a sly grin as Emma floated into the cockpit
    space with Camille. "Well," she said after touching her helmet's facebowl to his, "we finally
    meet at last."
    Silence.
    "I'm not going to haul you out of here. I just want to know if it really was your
    mother in that capsule."
    More silence.
    "Please, I really want to know."
    Even more silence. Emma batted Camille's facebowl with her hand, hard enough to get him
    to blink once. "Tell me. Was she, or wasn't she?"
    Camille took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In a voice leached of all emotion, he
    replied, "Check my right hand actuator. See for yourself."
    Emma excused herself from the cockpit and shot a safety line over to her own Gundam.
    Letting the reel freewheel, she worked her way hand over hand to the right hand actuator.
    Right away, she noticed some discoloration on the fingertips. She ran her hand lightly over
    the discoloration, and felt something slightly sticky. She couldn't tell what it was, due to
    the coloration of her pressure suit, so she experimentally touched a finger to her facebowl
    and watched it leave a crimson blemish that started turning a rust color. Her stomach heaved
    in revulsion, and it took an act of will not to throw up in her helmet.
    As a little girl, she had been taught that life was precious. When she was six, her
    little brother Corky (the name on the birth certificate said "Gainard," but everybody called
    him "Corky") was diagnosed in utero with Down's Syndrome. The obstetrician had suggested
    abortion as a probable alternative, but Zarina Sheen would have none of it. Even though the
    birth defect would claim Corky's life six years later, neither Emma nor her parents would
    have traded their brief time with him for anything.
    Before she left for the Federation Naval Academy to train for her chosen role as
    protector of the citizens of the Federation, Elliott Sheen had one piece of advice for his
    daughter: "Ignore the propaganda. Focus on what you see." And what she saw was not the
    warfare she had been trained for, but rather a government organization making war on its own
    citizens -- nay, on its own people, over a God-damned -machine.- Even if Emma was the sort of
    person who would take hostages, she would have simply used a video chip or transmission. This
    whole operation with the capsule seemed to her to be deliberately engineered to make Camille
    suffer before he was brought in.
    She tossed aside her oath right then and there; the Titans, and by association the
    Earth Federation, had not lived up to their end of the bargain. All that was left was to
    shore up whatever damage she felt she had a hand in causing. A hand fell upon her shoulder,
    startling her out of her reverie. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Quattro asked.
    "Yeah, I'm fine."
    "We're still willing to comply with your request. All we need is some time. The
    communique said we had an hour, if I remember correctly."
    Emma nodded.
    "Very well. You can expect delivery to Alexandria in one hour. Can I count on you to
    deliver that message, Lieutenant Sheen?"
    Emma straightened. "You can. The last thing any of us would want is further loss of
    life."
    "I apologize for any misunderstanding that may have resulted from this."
    "There's no misunderstanding, Captain," she answered, her voice strangely calm. "None
    at all."
    "Let's head back to the ship," Quattro said as soon as he placed his Rick Dias's hand
    on the Huckevine's shoulder. "Take Camille with you."
    "Does this mean we aren't giving him up?" Jay asked.
    "For now, we aren't."
    Jay paused. "Roger that. Commencing RTB."
    They may have been cornered by one of the most powerful ships ever built by mankind,
    they may have had their loved ones murdered, but they were still alive, and for the moment
    out of enemy hands.
    And that in itself was a victory, on a day in which damn few could be claimed.
    # Bruce Springsteen "American Skin (41 Shots)" _Live In New York City_
    TO BE CONTINUED...
    Acknowledgements
    ----------------
    To Banpresto and Sunrise, for obvious reasons.
    To Zhou Tai An and Mark Neidengard, for making foreign gaming a little more accessible.
    To Will Mao and Jean Domingo, for giving me various names to drop.
    To James Merritt, for being the first person outside my circle of friends and the SRW
    community to comment on this story.
    To Christopher B., for valued and able assistance.
    To Lloyd Barrieses, whose Gundam/Evangelion crossover served as a catalyst for a communique
    and a conversion.
    To Herman Wouk, for beating me to the title "The Winds Of War".
    To Brian Clevinger, for giving old RPG sprites a personality all their own.
    To J. Michael Straczynski, for producing a scene so amazingly amazing that I simply had to
    steal it.
    To John Ringo, celebrated sci-fi author and confirmed Sluggite, for being the first to name a
    military vehicle after a foul-tempered rodent with a switchblade. There -will- be a mecha
    nicknamed "Bun-Bun" in KNS somewhere down the line.
    Embellishment List v. 1.02
    --------------------------
    The FREESPACE series and RED FACTION by Volition Inc.
    STARLANCER by Digital Anvil
    The MARATHON series and HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED by Bungie Studios
    DEUS EX by Ion Storm
    STARCRAFT by Blizzard Entertainment
    INTRON DEPOT by Masamune Shirow
    SCUD: THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN by Rob Schrab
    HALO: THE FALL OF REACH by Eric Nylund
    BABYLON 5 (TV)
    SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (TV)
    THE MATRIX (movie)
    CYBERPUNK 2.0.2.0. and MEKTON ZETA by R. Taslorian Games
    HEAVY GEAR and JOVIAN CHRONICLES by Dream Pod 9
    SHADOWRUN by FASA Corporation
    The RENEGADE LEGION series, originally by FASA Corporation
    Alex Gilmour is from the Mekton Z campaign mentioned in the acknowledgements in Phase 1, and
    was my own character. Natsuki Yanagi was created by Shawn Hagen. Daiken Crow comes to us from
    the mind of Rurounin Mao, and Ryoga Kazehino hails from Ryoga316's fertile imagination.
    The "HST" in Cortana's .sig quote du jour is the one and only Hunter S. Thompson.
    Mr. Clevinger's work can be found here:
    If anybody sold you a hardcopy of this work, they ripped you off. I'm not writing this fic
    for monetary gain (it's freely available and distributable as long as the credits and
    disclaimer remain intact), nor to challenge the copyrights on enough characters, likenesses,
    and indicia to fill a major metropolitan area. Besides, I'm just this guy struggling to make
    ends meet, you know?
    Any faults with when and where certain characters fit into the general scheme of things can
    be blamed solely on the author.
    OMAKE: AND NOW FOR A WORD...
    ----------------------------
    (much respect and apologies to Rob Harris for hanging out the shingle for our "sponsor".)
    (We open with both Camille Vidan and Quattro Bajina standing on a balcony overlooking the
    hangar aboard Ahgama.)
    QUATTRO: You look like you have a problem.
    CAMILLE: You're damn right I have a problem! Take my name, for example. Oh, sure, it was
    popular for guys all right... back in -France-, centuries before the diaspora! Nowadays, only
    girls ever get named "Camille"! What kind of people would give that name to a boy?
    (Quattro is about to interject, but Camille presses on as if he remembered something)
    I mean besides my parents.
    (Quattro reaches into his vest pocket and pulls out a business card, which he then hands to
    Camille)
    QUATTRO: Here. I know some people who could help you.
    (A smarmy lawyer is shown standing in front of his desk in a richly-appointed office)
    LAWYER: If you have a character name that you hate, or if your opponents are always making
    cute jokes about your name, the Law Offices of Ramsperger, Gates, Mascarenhas, and Kaminski
    can help. We'll talk to those uncaring scriptwriters and get you a character name that
    demands -respect-!
    (Shadow treatment on some guy, with wild hair that defies any further description and
    billowing cloak)
    SHADOW GUY #1: Don't get me started on my last name. I used to have people walk up to me on
    the street and ask if I was somehow related to the Peanuts gang! But, thanks to Ramsperger,
    Gates, Mascarenhas, and Kaminski, I got the character name I needed to become the King Of
    Hearts and a Mobile Fighting legend!
    (Another guy, this one fully armored with a bullet-shaped helmet, gets the shadow treatment)
    SHADOW GUY #2: I tell you the truth, the Law Offices of Ramsperger, Gates, Mascarenhas and
    Kaminski get the job done. Before I enlisted their services, I was called Four-Eyes! Big
    Eyes, No Mouth! It's like they didn't even know there was a face under this helmet! Now, I am
    God.
    (Back to the lawyer in the office set. He's having great difficulty keeping a straight face
    as he fights a losing battle against cracking up laughing.)
    LAWYER: Well! His results *snicker* are certainly *guffaw* not typical, *chuckle* but the Law
    Offices of Ramsperger, Gates, Mascarenhas, and Kaminski are ready to fight and get you
    RESULTS!
    (Back to the Ahgama hangar)
    QUATTRO: And remember, I'm not just a compensated spokesman... I'm also a client!
    CAMILLE: A client?
    QUATTRO: Does the name "Char Aznable" mean anything to you?
    (Fade to business-card-like screen: "Law Offices of Ramsperger, Gates, Mascarenhas, and
    Kaminski", phone number, etc.)
    ANNOUNCER (quickly, like reading fine print on a radio ad): Not certified by the Earth
    Federation Board of Legal Specialization.
    Jay Denton will return in "The Kid From Left Field (Fear The Reaper)"


	4. The Kid From Left Field


    9 April 0187
    My dearest Mirai,
    By now, you may have heard that White Base has been declared overdue. That is only part of
    the story, and I don't know when I'll be able to see you or the children again (or contact
    you without being monitored by the Titans), hence this journal. This journal is also being
    started in case it is needed as evidence in any proceedings the Admiralty may see fit to
    convene against me. I can only pray that things will not progress to that point.
    Our current situation is this: At 1917 hours on 8 April 0187, the White Base was attacked by
    several flights of unknown mobile suits, which we now believe to have been affiliated with
    the Zanscare Empire, a member state of the Greater Jovian Co-Prosperity Sphere. During the
    action that followed, our escort of four GM-class mobile suits and four Lancer-class
    aerospace fighters were destroyed. In the face of our losses, I issued a mayday call at 1929
    hours. Five minutes later (1934 hrs.), AES Ahgama answered our distress call. Ahgama's mobile
    suit complement then proceeded to rout the raiders, at the cost of engine damage when the
    sole remaining raider executed a lightning-strike attack against Ahgama.
    As White Base slowed to make repairs, I met with our rescuers and found them to be the
    Anti-Earth Union Group. The people at the meeting aboard Ahgama comprised the senior
    leadership of the AEUG: General Brex Forra, Henken Beckner (Ahgama's captain), and Ahgama's
    MS company commander, a "'Major' Quattro Bajina", who I believe to be none other than former
    Zeon Oberst Char Aznable. The meeting lasted approximately ten minutes and covered topics
    ranging from the disposition of one Jay Denton (a civilian mecha pilot whom the AEUG had
    rescued from a destroyed convoy) to the Titans' projected reaction to the incident at the
    colony formerly known as Green Noah 2. One of Captain Beckner's remarks was especially
    telling: "It's not like [the AEUG] stole a -GM-." General Forra then made a most unusual
    offer: join the AEUG.
    I did not respond to the offer right away. General Forra took it better than I had hoped,
    even offering to let me think it over until the drives aboard White Base had been repaired.
    At 2230 hours, however, the impromptu convoy was met by a reinforced MS platoon under the
    command of Titans Lieutenant Emma Sheen. Lt. Sheen herself was carrying a sealed communique
    from Colonel Bosque Ohm, demanding the return of the Gundam MkII and the surrender of the
    person who had taken it, a Camille Vidan. The communique went on to state that failure to do
    so would mean the deaths of Master Vidan's parents, who from all accounts were with the
    Titans' SciTech Division. After Lt. Sheen had fervently professed no prior knowledge of the
    nature of the communique, a small observation capsule with Lt. Hilda Vidan trapped inside was
    spotted by Ahgama's bridge crew. During the course of a subsequent unauthorized rescue
    mission undertaken by Messrs. Vidan and Denton, a Titan lying in wait machinegunned the
    capsule before Vidan could retrieve it. Doubtlessly, Col. Ohm saw his own SciTech personnel
    as expendable assets.
    The lengths the Titans would go to in order to reclaim one mobile suit disgusted me, and one
    needn't have been a Newtype to know it disgusted Lieutenant Sheen. I knew then that the
    moment we had discussed at length -- the one eventuality I had prayed would never come to
    pass -- had indeed come.
    By accepting General Forra's offer, I have committed a willful act of treason against the
    Earth Federation government. The Titans would have you believe my word means nothing, seeing
    how I have conspired with the enemy.
    But, in the end, the only thing anyone can truly betray is his or her own conscience.
    ***
    "The conventional army loses if it does not win, the guerilla wins if he does not lose."
    -- Henry Kissinger
    # Rush "Force Ten" _Hold Your Fire_
    Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    presents a Tale of the Super Robot Wars
    written and directed by SliderDF (sliderdf@hotmail.com)
    Story copyright 2002, Rock And A Hard Place Productions
    Kage No Senshi -- Cycle 1: When Your Regular Deus Ex Machina Isn't Cutting It Anymore
    Phase 4: The Kid From Left Field (Fear The Reaper)
    ***
    Jay Denton was getting his head bitten off. It came as no surprise to him, as both he
    and Camille Vidan had attempted their rescue mission without sanction from those in command,
    but that didn't make this any easier to take.
    "Some people, and I can't say I blame them," Quattro Bajina said from his seat behind
    the desk in his office, while pointing at Camille, "would have left you to the tender mercies
    of the Titans." He then pointed to Jay. "And you would have been placed in the brig until we
    dropped you off at Mao Industries. What you two did out there was insubordinate bordering on
    -desertion.-"
    Quattro got up and walked around to the front of the desk. "Listen to me, CFB," he
    said, using the acronym which stood for 'clear as a fucking bell.' Jay noted that ever since
    this reaming started, the Major had not once raised his voice. "You two are -not- the only
    ones fighting this war. This war was not tailor-made just for you."
    "Major," Camille said, "we were only trying to--"
    "I don't care what you were trying to do at this point! You may have thought only your
    lives and the life of that hostage were on the line, but by pulling that stunt of yours, you
    put every single person aboard this ship at risk. Around here, we follow orders, or people
    die needlessly." He looked at Camille. "I expected this sort of behavior from you, as you are
    a civilian and not even out of high school. But you," he continued as he looked at Jay, "have
    been through a pilot training program. I expected you to have a clue."
    He sat back down. "Both of you are in hack for the next 48 hours. I would've preferred
    a stiffer punishment, but I can't teach you anything while you're in the brig, and I have a
    feeling we'll be needing every pilot we can get sooner rather than later. Bosque Ohm may be
    psychotic, but he's not stupid. Grant him at least that much respect. Camille, report to
    Astonage as soon as you leave. Now get out of my sight." Both young men turned to leave, but
    Quattro spoke again. "Jay, you stay here."
    As the door shut behind Camille, Jay said, "Before you say anything, if I had it to do
    all over again, I would have."
    "Truthfully?" Quattro asked.
    Jay nodded.
    "You know, you could have made the retrieval yourself, using your Huckevine's I-Fie--
    forgive me, Gravity Wall to block any incoming fire."
    Jay would have retorted, but Quattro's analysis had the unfortunate quality of being
    right. He regarded a seam in the deck plating, filled with his own self-loathing. Typical, he
    thought. It always seems like I'm a day late or a credit short in just about everything. And
    now, I got Camille's mom killed, all because of this stupid vendetta!
    Quattro regarded Jay's expression as the boy continued to berate himself internally.
    Maybe he does have a clue after all, he thought. He can admit that he does make mistakes, and
    that's the first step towards correcting them. No need to lay it on too thick. Like Camille,
    he too can be salvaged. He stood up and continued, "There was no way you could have bypassed
    the Luna Two Defense Corps without endangering Camille, and there was no way you could have
    known about the ambush at the capsule. I know it sounds hard to believe, but there are such
    things as 'circumstances beyond your control.' The only thing you can rely on one-hundred
    percent is what you yourself can do. But if you two learn to work together, you'll have a
    much better chance of getting through this alive.
    "Both you and Camille have your pride. The sort of pride that, if left untempered,
    *will* get you killed. Just keep your wits around you, and you'll learn to recognize the no
    win situations and avoid them altogether. I know the Training Simulation Module mentality: if
    you don't do it yourself, it'll never get done. But learn to trust in your wingmen. You
    should know by now," he added with a hint of a smile, "that we're not all scrubs here."
    "And what do I do in the meantime?" Jay asked.
    "Just go on and take your medicine. Nobody ever said life was fair. Camille's a little
    slow; I don't mean he's stupid, he's a bright kid. But he's got a great deal of growing up to
    do. Some of what we do around here might not make much sense at first, but do keep in mind
    that there's a method to all the madness. Now head back to your quarters. You've got just
    enough time to get cleaned up and finish eating before your Ready-5 shift starts."
    Jay paused at the door and turned to look back at the company commander. "You're
    wondering if the rumors are true or not," Quattro said. The statement took Jay aback. Not so
    much as what was said as it was the way it was said. It wasn't so much a question as much as
    an acknowledgement of fact, like he already knew that the thought had crossed his mind. Jay
    was just a little unnerved by that. "Yes," Quattro elaborated, "I know there's a rumor going
    around that I'm really Char Aznable. But camp rumors are part and parcel of military life.
    Always have been, always will be."
    "If they're not true," Jay asked, "then why do you let them circulate? Ceilidh Denton,
    God rest her soul," he said, pronouncing his aunt's first name 'KAY-lee,' "may have raised
    one fool, but it was not her nephew Jason."
    "That particular rumor is one I've found not to be detrimental to the chain of command.
    Long before the Diaspora, in Central Europe, during a time known as the Thirty Years' War,
    King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden often led cavalry patrols under an assumed name. Perhaps he
    was possessed of that special mad bravery, or perhaps he knew he had to lead from the front
    to earn the respect of his men. Or maybe he knew the military value of a reputation as the
    toughest, hardest, meanest soldier in the whole Swedish army."
    "And so, we should be receiving both the stolen Gundam MkII and Mr. Vidan within the
    hour," Emma Sheen said, summing up her report on the Alexandria's bridge. She had been
    summoned there the second she landed, and was inwardly hoping that her little fiction
    regarding the timing of the communique's receipt would be overlooked.
    Instead, Bosque Ohm surprised her. He said at length, "Emma, I don't like taking
    hostages any more than you do. Let's approach things your way this time. I want you to go
    back to the Ahgama to take delivery, and make sure they haven't sabotaged the Gundam or
    worse."
    "With all due respect, sir, I'm not completely checked out on the inner workings of the
    Gundam MkII."
    "I'm not sending you out there alone, Lieutenant. You'll have a technical expert with
    you, and I've arranged for you to have both our remaining Gundam MkIIs at your disposal. Luna
    Two Defense Wing 27 is your backup, should you need them."
    Before today, Emma would have asked if they could have just performed the inspection
    out in space, under the protective umbrella of Alexandria's guns. As it stood, she said
    nothing, but her posture betrayed her supposition that there was more to this trip than
    simple mere retrieval of stolen property.
    Bosque picked up on that. "I also have something else for you to do while you're there.
    You are to procure one of their Rick Dias-class mobile suits, through fair negotiations."
    Before Emma could demur, he continued, "I have every confidence in your ability to carry this
    mission out. And you're certainly smart enough to give -me- suggestions."
    Last chance to have everything above board, Emma thought. She was already sailing into
    dangerous waters as it was. "Then I have one suggestion," she said. "I want Franklin Vidan
    for the technical expert on this mission. There's nobody on this ship who knows the Gundam
    MkII's design like Hauptmann Vidan. We've already shown we mean business, Colonel. Now we
    need to show that we can keep our word."
    "Noted," Bosque replied, his expression as blank as a galley refrigerator's door. "In
    this case, however, the flight risk outweighs any gains we could hope to make. Request
    denied."
    Of course, Emma thought sourly while outwardly showing mild disappointment. And how
    exactly -did- the flight risk get so high, Colonel Ohm?
    "Sir," Jerrid said as he braced to attention from where he had been lounging against
    the bulkhead, "permission to accompany Lieutenant Sheen on this mission?"
    "On what grounds?" Bosque asked.
    "The chance to redeem myself, vindicate my lost honor, sir."
    "'Vindicate your lost honor'? War is not all honor, glory, and afterglow, Lieutenant
    Messa. Ask me again when you've actually accomplished something." He turned toward Emma.
    "Anything else you wish to add, Lieutenant Sheen?"
    Emma shook her head.
    "Very well. You leave in twenty mikes."
    "Hey, Camille," Jim Raynor said as he floated up to where Camille was working on his
    Gundam MkII. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
    "Don't tell me," Camille replied harshly, "Quattro the Major sent you here to take
    another bloody strip off me?"
    "Actually, I'm here of my own accord. But if you keep that crap up, the only thing that
    will get to the brig faster than you will be the headlights of the ambulance cart you're on."
    Camille set down the scrub brush, and turned to face Raynor. He didn't like being
    yelled at, but men like Quattro Bajina and Jim Raynor were the sort who commanded attention
    without having to raise their voices.
    "In case you didn't realize it," Raynor continued, holding his thumb and forefinger
    perhaps a centimeter apart, "you came this close to ending up in a holding cell aboard the
    Alexandria."
    "The Major already told me that."
    "Good. I don't know if this has sunk in yet for you, but life as you knew it back home
    has ended. This is a ship of war, and the bullshit tolerance around here just took a steep
    nosedive. We can't have people that can't or won't pull their weight on board. And believe
    me, it's better that you hear this from me than from the Captain."
    "Like I wanted to be here in the first place," Camille murmured.
    Jim clenched his fist at his side to keep himself from unloading a backhand into
    Camille's face. "I don't know what your damage is, buddy, but you'd better get it squared
    away real fast. You might not have wanted this situation, but here it is. If it were up to
    me, I'd still be an Outworld Marshal. It's not a perfect world out there, and we don't get
    exactly what we want. Better get used to it."
    "So what do I do if I decide to stay here? Become a pilot just to sate everybody's
    curiosity?"
    "Look, there's not a whole lot of people that can do what you do out there. But you got
    to want to do it for yourself."
    Camille looked away, picking out a spot on the howdah's decking. "Still, if I went
    ahead and joined the AEUG, it'd be like admitting that everything I've ever been taught to
    believe in was all just one big lie."
    Jim nodded understandingly. "And what exactly were those things?"
    "Duty, honor, country, that sort of thing."
    "Duty's a part of life. No matter what we do in life, we all have a duty to someone or
    something, even if it is just ourselves. And I've learned that you don't need a badge on your
    arm to have honor. As for country, I believe the army exists to defend -all- of Earth's
    people, not just those who happen to be standing on the planet. The people we're up against
    forgot that a long time ago.
    "Besides, this line of work does have its advantages," Raynor continued. "Freedom of
    conscience, for one thing. Take a look at these." He showed the posters he took off the White
    Base's bulletin board to Camille, whose eyes widened at the strings of phrases -- "WANTED IN
    ANY CONDITION", "Camille [NMN] Vidan", "ARMED AND DANGEROUS". A part of him noted with some
    detachment that they had airbrushed the bruises out of his face from the photo they had taken
    of him at his booking.
    "You're in such deep shit as it is," said Raynor flatly, "the only way it could
    possibly get any deeper is if the Almighty Himself were to hold you personally responsible
    for the crucifixion of Christ." He leaned back against the railing, steadying himself with
    his hands. "The only thing that matters right now is what you -choose- to do. I know it's not
    something the Federation government particularly encourages in this day and age, and you've
    paid a terrible price for something that could get you killed, but it's all yours now. Yours
    to do whatever you want with it. Find your own path, make your own decisions. And if you know
    in your heart that you are right, sometimes that's all you need. Even when it seems like the
    whole world is against you."
    "But is... all this really the right thing to do?" Camille asked.
    "In my experience, the kind of people who actually stop to ask and then answer those
    questions usually end up doing the right things. That's all. End of speech." Raynor turned
    and left Camille to his thoughts.
    Franklin Vidan looked up from his perch on the detention cell bunk when he heard the
    scuffle outside the door. The door opened, and in floated a battered security officer,
    accompanied by a figure in a black pressure suit. The figure then proceeded to restrain the
    unconscious guard with a cuff-strip before relieving him of his weapon and communicator.
    "I'm really sorry about your wife," Emma Sheen said as she raised her visor. She sat
    down on the bunk opposite Franklin's and field-stripped the guard's pistol. "Would you be
    willing to escape Alexandria with me?"
    Franklin asked, "You're going to the Yugoes-- I mean, the Ahgama, right?"
    Emma nodded once. "Yes," she said.
    "I'd rather take my chances with the Colonel."
    She made a great show of unzipping the pocket that held her ankle holster, which in
    turn held her sidearm.
    "So," Franklin said. "It's your way or the hard way, then."
    Emma nodded without a trace of smugness.
    "Very well, Lieutenant. Lead on."
    Astonage Medosso turned at the sound of the door to his office opening. "What's on your
    mind, Camille?" he asked the youth standing at the threshold.
    Camille swallowed before crossing over to the computer desk. For all of his flaws --
    his social ineptitude, his repressed anger, and especially his immaturity -- he had inherited
    his father's ability to notice the flaws in existing technologies, and improve upon them. And
    even if his future on this ship was in doubt, there was still something he could do. "Uh, I
    don't know how much longer I'll be here," he said, "but there's a drawing I have on my
    computer account that I want you to have."
    "Well, let's see it."
    Camille punched a few keys, emailing the drawing to Astonage while at the same time
    pulling it up. "It's only a concept drawing, but..." His voice trailed off.
    "No, that's all right. In fact, this drawing's pretty good." Both men regarded a
    Gundamesque mobile suit, white with blue vambraces, pauldrons, and plastron. A shield, much
    like the one on the Gundam MkII except for it being longer and tapering to a single point at
    the end nearest the shoulder, hung on the left arm.
    "I took everything I liked about the Gundam MkII and the Rick Dias, put them together,
    redid the armor, and added trans-atmospheric capability," Camille said. "I call this the Zeta
    Gundam."
    "Tell you what," Astonage replied, contemplatively rubbing his chin as if to stroke a
    beard he hadn't grown. "If you're still with us when the smoke clears, I'll let you borrow my
    CAD deck anytime you want. It's not like I'll have time to use it, seeing as how I've got to
    get acquainted with the Major's new toy." He chivvied Camille out of the chair, logged him
    out, and logged in under his own account before pulling up a drawing of a different MS, this
    one having about the same dimensions as the Zeta Gundam, but with no V-crest on the helm and
    no shield. Long, thin twin tails extended from its back, and with the exception of the
    plastron, the whole suit was predominantly a golden color.
    "My God," Jay Denton's voice carried from the doorway of the room, "it's C-3PO on PCP."
    "Jay!" Camille turned toward the door. "I thought you were in hack!"
    "Well, I am. They want me to stand an Alert-5 watch, is all." Jay indicated his marine
    minder with a nod of his head. "May I have a couple of minutes?"
    "Negative," the marine answered. "Major Raynor would kill me if he found out."
    "Please," Jay said. "I just want to know what this is." He turned to Astonage. "What is
    that?" he asked.
    "Besides C-3PO on PCP, this is the Major's new 'hyaku-shiki', or Type 100. One of the
    first suits from Anaheim Electronics's Z Project." Sure enough, the kanji for '100' graced
    both shoulder pauldrons. "The Radish dropped it off while you were sleeping, and we just now
    finished the final assembly."
    Jay nodded, taking it all in. His minder, seeing the opening, steered Jay out of the
    room. "Come on," he said, "we're running late."
    "Z Project?" Camille asked once Jay was out of the room.
    "Anaheim's efforts to produce the first post-Gundam mobile suits. They even ask for my
    input from time to time. Who knows, maybe that concept of yours can become a reality."
    Camille allowed himself a smile that might hold real warmth in it again someday.
    "Time until the rendevous?" Bosque Ohm asked.
    "One hour," Jamican answered, clasping his hands behind his back.
    "Lt. Sheen should be back by the time our guests arrive, then." She had left aboard
    Alexandria's Orca-class dropshuttle, the Atalanta, five minutes ago. "When this business is
    done, I'll be heading back to Gripps aboard the Borneo. I want you to continue the pursuit
    with both Alexandria and Bosnia. The AEUG must be crushed before they can aid the Zeons."
    "Affirmative, sir." The last thing they needed now were any surprises.
    Fate, it would seem, is not without a sense of irony.
    The bridge handset buzzed angrily. Jamican picked it up and listened intently, his face
    darkening. "Very well," he said before hanging up. Turning to Bosque, he said, "That was
    Hauptmann Richter in Security. It seems Lt. Messa found Chief Hughes in Lt. Sheen's quarters,
    drugged. So, Richter checked the brig. Corporal Chen was found in a cell with a mild
    concussion and no communicator. And Hauptmann Vidan is missing."
    Bosque's fists clenched around his seat's armrests as he followed the trail of facts to
    their conclusion. "That sly little vixen," he muttered. Raising his voice, he cried,
    "Scramble Hermes Wing immediately! I want her brought back. -Alive.-"
    He waited until the crew were about their tasks before saying in a tone so low that
    only Jamican could hear, "At what point did 'my nation, right or wrong' turn into 'my nation
    can go to hell if they do something I don't like'?"
    The partisan sat in a darkened mobile suit, listening through the various radio bands
    while he was in go-to-ground mode. So far, it had been relatively quiet, except for a task
    force of Titans ships that he was trying to get close to. He hadn't had much luck finding an
    opening in their sensor net, but he was confident that he would. And then he would make those
    oppressors pay for what they had done to the colonies.
    Just then, a transmission caught his attention. "Atalanta, this is Hermes Wing," a male
    voice said. "You are instructed to return to base immediately. Should you fail to do so, we
    will destroy your engines, and you will be -carried- back. Over."
    A quick look down at his lidar screen showed three MS-scale blips chasing a slightly
    larger blip into a debris field, not more than 600 meters from his position, where he was
    hiding inside the gutted shell of what once was a Komusai-class shuttle. As the dropshuttle
    passed, he could make out Titans markings on it. "They're having trouble keeping their own
    people in line?" the partisan mused to himself. "Wait until they get a load of me."
    That being said, he flicked a few switches, bringing the reactor back up to full power
    and activating the jamming functions of his ECM suite. He whistled the first few bars of a
    funeral march before bending over his controls.
    Time to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
    The emmissions officer frowned at his screen. "Hermes Wing, can you read me, over?" he
    said frantically. He sighed and turned back towards Jamican Dannigan, who had the conn while
    the Colonel was preparing to meet their guests. "We just lost contact with Hermes Wing, sir."
    "That's impossible," Jamican stated flatly. "How did it happen?"
    "They were just entering the debris field a couple of MSKs from our position when Lt.
    Baro started raving about 'the reaper'. I haven't heard anything since."
    Jamican forced himself not to sigh explosively. Lt. Sheen would already have reached
    Ahgama by the time Wing 27 caught up with her. And given their understrength status, they
    would stand little chance against Ahgama's MS complement. "Send a nanny ship, with escorts,
    to look for survivors," he said.
    Franklin noticed the dots on the lidar wink out one after the other. "What happened?"
    he asked.
    "I don't know," Emma mused. "Somebody out there either liked us or didn't like the
    Titans. And I'm not staying around to find out who it was. This Orca does have Titans
    markings, after all."
    "Could it have been a Yug--er, AEUG patrol?"
    "Negative. I would have had something on the lidar if it was." Could somebody else be
    out here? she thought.
    Any further ruminations on her part were cut short, however. "Unidentified dropshuttle
    off my port bow," a voice over the radio said, "this is the AES Ahgama. Identify yourself
    immediately. Over."
    "This is Titans dropshuttle Atalanta," Emma Sheen's voice said through Miguel Torres's
    earbug, "returning with precious cargo."
    Torres immediately patched in the conversation to the bridge speakers. "Can you
    elaborate, Atalanta?"
    "I have one MS on board, as well as a Titans prisoner. Requesting permission to land
    and offload cargo."
    "Wait one." Torres put the transmission on hold and turned to look at Henken Beckner up
    in the raised center seat. "Have Raynor take a team out to the shuttle and search it for
    explosives," the captain said. "I don't want any surprises." Henken then turned to Brex
    Forra, who had just come onto the bridge. "The Major was right," he said with a proud smile.
    "She did come back."
    "Atalanta," Torres said, "come to within 500 meters of our position, heave to, and
    standby to receieve boarders. Just a routine check."
    "Acknowledged, Ahgama. Atalanta out."
    Emma leaned back and let her head sink into the head rest with a relieved sigh. They
    had made it.
    "Lieutenant," Jamican said in his office a while later, "I'm sure you've heard the news
    by now. We've lost Hermes Wing, and Lieutenant Sheen has doubtlessly gone over to the enemy."
    "I know, sir," Jerrid Messa replied.
    "I've been speaking with the Colonel. With our recent losses, we're short of qualified
    pilots for Unit 2. And you've been selected to pilot it."
    "Thank you, sir!" Jerrid said, fighting to keep the smile off his face.
    "Don't thank me yet, boy. The Colonel said to tell you this goes against his better
    judgement, but you're the best of what we've got left. Do -not- make a fool out of me."
    "Sir!"
    "Hey, Other-Newtype," Roberto said as he floated over to where Jay was stationed,
    waiting for some emergency that would require him to scramble back inside the hangar and get
    to his PT.
    Jay turned a half-lidded glare on him until he saw the twinkle in Roberto's eyes that
    told him he was only trying to pull his chain. "Yeah?" he replied.
    "Do you believe in miracles?"
    Jay nodded.
    "Good. Then come and see this one. The Major said it was all right, and I'll cover for
    ya until you get back. It's in the hangar."
    Jay floated back into the hangar to see a dropshuttle with Titans markings being
    lowered down on the elevator to the deck. Two people in black pressure suits floated down
    from the control room. Crew compartments on dropshuttles were too large to be considered a
    cockpit, and yet too small to be called a proper bridge. The taller of the two went over to
    supervise the removal of another black Gundam MkII from the shuttle's cargo bay, while his
    counterpart presented herself to the Major.
    As she removed her helmet, letting her dark brown hair fall loosely around her head
    (which stopped at a point just above her pressure suit's collar), Jay's eyes widened. It was
    the same woman who had come aboard earlier!
    "Lieutenant Sheen," Quattro said. "Forgive me for being cynical, but I have reason to
    believe this... defection of yours is less than genuine. After all, Titans are selected from
    the best and brightest of EarthForce."
    Emma nodded. Quattro took that as his invitation to continue: "That being said, what
    was it that changed within the Titans -- or inside you -- that prompted this course of
    action?"
    Emma was unfazed. "We must all live as our conscience dictates, Major," she replied
    calmly. "What happened earlier tonight just wasn't right."
    "Still a Titan, through and through?" Jim Raynor asked.
    "No, Major Raynor. Not after this night. If things had continued the way they have
    been, I would've woken up one morning, looked at myself in the mirror, and not liked the
    woman staring back at me."
    "She's got a point," Camille said. He had seen the occupants of the dropshuttle
    disembark, and thought he knew who the black pressure-suited man was from the way he moved.
    He didn't want to believe it at first, but now that he had gotten a better look, he didn't
    dare disbelieve it. At length, the words he never thought he'd say about a Titan came out.
    "Emma's a nice person."
    It started with a little raising of the corners of her mouth, and Emma kept enough
    control to keep those corners from rising further, but the little smile that got out went all
    the way to her eyes.
    "And this must be the Hauptmann Vidan I've heard so much about," Quattro said,
    diplomatically calling attention to Emma's travelling companion, who had doffed his helmet,
    revealing a shock of carefully-cut and combed dark blond hair. He had excused himself from
    the gathering as soon as the dropshuttle arrived, and was now stroking the Huckevine MkII's
    leg like one might the neck of a horse. "An authentic Personal Trooper," he said.
    "Magnificent."
    Jay might have taken it as a compliment to his taste, but this new arrival was busy
    looking over the arrayed mechs and making noises like he was going to hump his Huckevine's
    leg at any minute. He remembered something Ilm Kazahara had told him, when he first came to
    the Mao Industries training campus and saw the rows of gleaming Geshpensts up close: "It's
    the people whose breath -isn't- taken away by this sight that worry me."
    Nevertheless, there was a certain wrongness about this man's approach. Camille, who was
    standing next to Jay, muttered, "Was he even aware of the danger he was in?"
    Maybe, Jay further reflected, it had something to do with the fact that he had gone
    straight to the flight line, never asking about his son, who had been fighting for his life.
    Another man with his priorities out of whack. Oh well, these things either work out or they
    don't.
    "Dad!" Camille said sharply, springing briskly over to his father. When he got there,
    he said in a more subdued tone, "Dad.... Mom's dead."
    "I know," the elder Vidan replied sadly. He raised his hands, as if to take Camille by
    the shoulders, but stopped short of actually doing it, letting them drop to his sides. "Why'd
    she have to die?"
    "I don't know! All I did was try to save her." Camille let out a mirthless laugh. "I
    guess now your affair with Margarita can be more open."
    Franklin answered with a thunderous slap that rocked Camille's head back. "I will not
    be spoken to in that tone of voice! Do you understand, young man?"
    As he watched this, Quattro noted to himself that if these two men were anything but
    father and son, Jim Raynor would have had to break up a brawl on the flight deck. Even though
    the two Vidan men looked nothing like each other, they were possessed of the same volcanic
    temper.
    "It's true, isn't it?!" Camille shouted, anger masking his fear. "Face the facts, Dad:
    you and Mom were -hostages!- If you want those responsible for her death, the only place you
    need to look is on the bridge of the Alexandria!"
    "Are you trying to tell me Colonel Ohm is responsible for this?"
    Camille smartly nodded once as he rubbed his cheek from where it was slapped.
    "I know it's a lot to digest, Hauptmann," Quattro said. "Just take your time. However,
    I think that the rest of these proceedings are best held in a properly secured debriefing
    room."
    As Quattro led Camille's father to the Ahgama's wardroom, Jay came up to Camille.
    Before he could say anything, Camille said, "I don't want to talk about this, Jay."
    Jay would have pressed the issue, but one look at Camille's eyes told him there was no
    percentage in that. "All right." He patted Camille's shoulder. "You know where I am if you
    need me."
    Camille nodded weakly.
    Jay sighed as he turned and walked away. I think he just broke my record for Most
    Tragedy In The Shortest Time, he thought.
    "The apparent defection of Lieutenant Sheen has put the Titans off balance," Quattro
    summed up in the Ahgama's wardroom a few minutes later, after debriefing the new arrivals.
    "Now they have no hostages, and only one Gundam MkII. And even with Radish and Mont Blanc in
    our task force, they think we wouldn't dare attack them in the state we're in." The two
    Salamis-class cruisers (with the former still bearing the name EFC Sachiwaru on its keel
    plate) had linked up with Ahgama and White Base, bringing the AEUG task force to four ships.
    That brought the total of Salamis cruisers on either side to two apiece, but a destroyer like
    Alexandria was more than a match for two wounded carriers. And that estimate didn't account
    for the evacuees from Green Noah 2.
    Henken Beckner nodded. "Mmmm. Standard operating procedure for the Titans in this
    situation would have been to RTB after taking the Gundam."
    "Which is why you think now would be the perfect time to attack," Bright Noah said.
    "Yes," Quattro said with a sly smile. "Let's use one of the Gundams in the attack. We
    did promise them a delivery. I'd hate to be proven a liar."
    "Funny you should mention that," Reccoa said after setting the last drink she was
    passing out on the table. "Astonage's already repainting the Gundam MkII we're keeping." At
    Brex Forra's questioning look, she raised a finger and said, "You weren't going to keep the
    Titans' colors on it forever, were you?"
    Brex chuckled. "Then it's settled. We'll divide the evacuees between White Base and
    Radish. I'll transfer my flag to Radish, and Henken can take command of White Base. Captain
    Noah will conduct the attack from Ahgama. Don't be surprised, Captain. This mission requires
    a battle-tested officer, and I won't have a mere commander in Ahgama's center seat. That
    would be unseemly."
    "Very well," Bright said. "Major, in thirty minutes, I want a magnum launch -- all
    fightercraft up. Ahgama and Mont Blanc will follow the strike to provide support while Radish
    and White Base make good their escape."
    "Yes, sir," Quattro answered. "I'm still having trouble believing that Lieutenant
    Sheen's defection is genuine. She still has family on Earth, and the Titans have shown that
    they're quite willing to use family to get to any one of us."
    Brex nodded. "The kind of people who'd raise a daughter to turn out like her generally
    aren't in the habit of lying to themselves, Major."
    "I'm aware of that, General. I just want to make sure -she- is, as well. Speaking of
    which, Captain, do you have any family back on Earth?"
    "My wife and two children, yes. They'll be all right, though; I've already broached the
    subject of the AEUG with my wife, and she's a sort of Newtype."
    "Really?"
    Bright nodded. "You might know her better by her maiden name: Mirai Yashima. She was
    helmswoman on White Base throughout the War."
    "And your two children wouldn't by any chance be a boy and a girl, with the boy being
    the eldest, would they?" Quattro asked in a matter-of-fact tone.
    Bright's eyes narrowed. "The AEUG's intelligence network has gotten very good."
    "Not so much that as it just seemed right for somebody like you. You're of a type,
    Captain; the kind the EFN puts on recruitment posters for naval officer programs, even before
    the One Year War."
    "Well," Bright chuckled. He took a breath before continuing earnestly, "I didn't get to
    where I am today through charming good looks and an electric personality. You know that as
    well as I do."
    "What in the blue hell do you think you're doing?!" Franklin Vidan shouted at the
    technicians disecting Gundam MkII Unit 1 for reverse-engineering. "You're supposed to take
    all the insulation off -before- removing the balancer!"
    "Aren't you being a little hard on them?" Rafael Esquivel asked from his post behind
    Franklin's right shoulder.
    He craned his head around to look Rafe in the eye. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're
    supposed to apply your intelligence and go with your gut in this line of work! And, begging
    your pardon, some of this crew seem to have all the intelligence of a split pea."
    "You heard the man," Rafe called out. "Get that insulation off!" This guy may be a pain
    in the ass, he thought, but he designed this thing. What's this pendejo gonna complain about
    next?
    As soon as the thought crossed Rafe's mind, Franklin continued with what, on his
    planet, was hands-on instruction: "Careful with that laser torch!" He floated over to the
    tech working on a foot actuator. "The frame in that area is highly conductive of heat! Here,
    let me show you." He grabbed the laser torch out of the tech's hand and set to work on the
    foot actuator.
    "I know it's nothing like you're used to," Astonage said as he floated over from where
    the other crew was putting the finishing touches on Gundam MkII Unit 3's brand new white
    thermocoat, "but please try and understand the situation we're all in."
    "Oh, I do, believe me." He turned around and jabbed the laser torch into Astonage's
    midsection. "Weapons down or he's dead!"
    "If this is your idea of a joke, Hauptmann..."
    "Do you see me laughing? In fact, I think I'd like the technician's course on the Rick
    Dias. Now move!" He began to frogmarch Astonage towards the personnel airlock leading to the
    catapult where Quattro's Rick Dias was. "Anybody does anything stupid," Franklin shouted,
    "and you can kiss your chief's ass goodbye!"
    Cortana was restless again. Although most AIs were based on a human mind, they had no
    need to sleep or dream. She had been originally conceived as an intelligence-gathering AI,
    which meant she had all the latest icebreakers the minds at the Earth Federation Office of
    Naval Intelligence's CyberIntel Division could come up with, as well as the will to use them.
    She would have never been assigned to a PT if it wasn't for one flaw in her character: she
    got bored easily. Back then, when she got bored, ONI and Divine Crusaders sysadmins alike
    reached for the antacids, for their security systems usually got reamed good and proper.
    These days, Cortana amused herself by people-watching, using the feeds from Ahgama's
    security cameras. It was how she had learned to hack, just a couple of days after her
    birth/incept date. Going into a particular system, gaining root access, and just watching;
    taking nothing but readings, leaving no traces, killing nothing but time. She was itching to
    test out exactly how much freedom she'd have, but there were certain qualities that could
    only be measured by seeing people in action.
    Well, she thought to herself, it certainly beats electric sheep.
    The feed from the hangar caught her attention, as two techs detached themselves from
    the disassembly and walked toward the hangar. She zoomed in to see who they were...
    The phone in Jim Raynor's office rang. He grabbed it from where he was working on some
    paperwork, and answered, "This is Jimmy."
    "Listen carefully, Major Raynor," a smooth female contralto voice said. "You have a
    hostage situation in the hangar. Hauptmann Vidan is making a break for it. Recommend you get
    a team down there on the double."
    "You have got to be Cortana," he said as he punched up the hangar feed on his monitor.
    "The Major told me about you, and besides, I know what every woman on this ship sounds like."
    "There's no time for that now! Please, Major, hurry!" The line went dead.
    Jim looked over at his monitor for a second, before dropping the phone and slapping the
    intruder alert button located next to his terminal.
    "The hell?" Henken wondered as the intruder alarm sounded. He raced for the intercom,
    picked it up, and listened to a summation of the situation. "Raynor, Torres, keep your
    weapons tight! If he's going where I think he's going, he's gonna lead us right to the
    Alexandria." Hanging up the handset, he called for the other Major, but he was already out of
    the wardroom and running down the hall.
    The intercom light in the wardroom buzzed a few seconds later. "Beckner. Go."
    Quattro said, "Send Jay and Sleggar on the first pursuit launch. Ready Apolli and
    Roberto on the second. I'll go too, if I can catch up."
    The intruder alert went off just as Franklin Vidan dogged the airlock hatch shut.
    "Well," he said, "I was right about them having the intelligence of a split pea."
    "Somehow I don't think you want the technician's course," Astonage said as he put his
    pressure suit's helmet on and sealed it.
    "Actually, I'll be taking the Rick Dias back with me," Franklin replied as he slid a
    steel rod between the hatch coaming and the dogging wheel, jamming the door shut.
    "Have you lost your mind? You were a hostage, for chrissake!"
    "I know. And that's one of the things the Colonel owes me for. I figure providing them
    with the AEUG's latest frontline suit will be a good start. After that, I can code my own
    ticket in SciTech."
    "You selfish bast--" Astonage began.
    "I'd be a little more polite if I were you," Franklin said, tapping the torch against
    Astonage's facebowl. "We both know I know how to use this."
    Back on his lookout watch, Jay finally saw what the blocks on either side of Ahgama
    were used for, namely telescoping outwards and rotating around the ship's centerline axis,
    providing the living spaces with artificial gravity. Lookout duty may have been boring as
    watching paint dry, but it was something to do.
    He warbled, "Earth below us, drifting, falling, floating weightless..." He'd been
    accused of having a tin ear and/or being tone deaf, but he still liked to sing when nobody
    else could hear him.
    Cortana's voice suddenly broke in: "Can the arias, Jay, and get back to the Huckevine
    immediately!"
    "What's going on?" he asked.
    "A bad case of Helsinki syndrome. Hurry!"
    He turned around and started to reel himself in by the umbilical attached to his
    skinsuit.
    "It won't budge, sir," a marine at the airlock door said to Jim Raynor as they gathered
    around it. "He's jammed it from the inside."
    "Then get that cat door open!" Raynor shouted. "Move!"
    As the sirens warned everybody not in a pressure suit to evacuate the area, Jim
    muttered, "I knew I should've stayed in bed this mornin'."
    "Well, go ahead," Franklin said as they stood on the howdah for the scarlet Rick Dias,
    "get it open."
    Astonage punched in the code that opened the hatch to the cockpit in the head. As soon
    as the hatch opened, Franklin said, "Thank you very much, but your services are no longer
    required!" And with that, he gave Astonage a shove that carried him clear off the howdah into
    open space.
    "DUTCHMAN! DUTCHMAN! DUTCHMAN!" shouted Astonage into his radio. It was one of the
    nightmares of space travel: being adrift in space with no means of return to the ship, until
    one's air supply or suit heat ran out. If somebody didn't rescue him sharpish, Astonage
    Meddoso would literally become a Flying Dutchman.
    "Copy your Dutchman, Astonage," Lou Caesar replied, all business. "Just sit tight." He
    keyed the all-call. "Dutchman! Dutchman! Flight Ops is declaring a Dutchman! Launch the ready
    M-Pod!"
    [I'm thinking of a phrase,] Cortana sent as the scarlet Rick Dias took off. [Two words,
    three syllables, rhymes with "clucking bell."]
    [How much longer do we got on the startup?] Jay asked.
    [15 seconds.]
    As Jay watched the relevant details of the most recent hostage situation (cadged from
    various sources aboard Ahgama by Cortana), he came to a sudden, intuitive realization about
    his quarry.
    Despite all the posturing, all the bluster, all the self-serving rhetoric, Franklin
    Vidan was -afraid- of his boss.
    And why wouldn't he be? If he had been ordered aboard Alexandria under false pretenses
    to be used as bait in a trap for his son, and had the knowledge of his extramarital affair
    brought up when he confronted said boss over the death of his wife, then there was no telling
    what lengths Bosque Ohm would go to -- or what depths he'd sink -- to get what he wanted.
    Morgan Denton had a name for such a phenomenon, and Jay knew it only because he had
    asked his uncle about a particularly troublesome fugitive pursuit.
    The elder Denton had called it "the fear that gives men wings."
    He ski-jumped the Huckevine MkII off the catapult and hit his boosters, hoping his
    speed was enough to catch this twit. At length, he saw the Core Booster coming up on his
    left, waggling its wings. He shot a comm-line out to it. "I guess they don't select them for
    horse sense," Sleggar Rowe observed. "I'll hook him, you clean him. Don't fry him, though --
    we just got to delay him until the rest of the squadron comes up to join us."
    "Roger that," Jay replied. "Last thing I wanna do is orphan Camille the same day I met
    him."
    As soon as the hangar repressurized, Quattro kicked off the hangar wall and hurtled
    toward the Type 100. There was no time for a proper suit-donning. Nearby, Camille was being
    restrained from hopping into the Gundam MkII by both Reccoa and Emma. "Major," he began, "I'm
    really sorry for what my father has done."
    "It's all right," Quattro said as he floated by.
    "At least take me with you!"
    "But could you shoot your own father?" Quattro asked before he ducked inside the Type
    100. He took off his sunglasses as he brought the reactor up.
    Franklin Vidan, you're beginning to be more trouble than you're worth.
    # Kenny Wayne Shepherd "In 2 Deep" _Live On_
    Franklin was pleasantly surprised by the handling characteristics of his purloined Rick
    Dias. "Such responsiveness," he breathed. "And the acceleration--!" His gushing was
    interrupted by twin spears of ruby-colored plasma crossing his field of vision from his left
    hand side.
    "Don't be an idiot, Hauptmann," came Jay Denton's voice over the radio. "You have an
    AEUG IFF transponder on your mech. The Titans would just as soon shoot you than look at
    you."
    "Hardly matters if I can hail them, doesn't it?" Franklin responded as he twisted
    around, beam pistol at the ready.
    The Core Booster cut across his path for a moment, too fast to get a bead on. "Get
    real," said Jay as he brought up his Huckevine's Subach. "There's no way you can outrun
    either of us. No matter what you do, we've got the thrust advantage and the delta-vee to
    catch you. You're making this much harder than it needs to be."
    Franklin fired, only to have the beam dissipate against a field that suddenly flared
    into existence.
    "And nothing you've got can get through my Gravity Wall," said Jay matter-of-factly.
    There was only one thing Franklin Vidan could do in this situation.
    He turned and hit his boosters, trying to get away.
    "Captain," Quattro said once he got his Type 100 situated on the catapult, "why don't
    we move the strike up a little? We've already got four mechs up."
    Bright nodded. "Very well. Give us five minutes to get the evacuees off."
    "Yes, sir."
    As the Type 100 launched, Bright turned to his airboss. "Mr. Caesar, we're going to
    press Atalanta into service for those evacuees. Get as many people that don't have pressure
    suits aboard her for immediate transfer to White Base."
    "Aye aye, sir," Caesar said.
    Camille's face took on a determined expression as he dropped the grab bar leading to
    the living sections and sprung off the deck with his legs, heading back the way he came.
    "Camille?" asked Emma as his flightpath took him over her head. She turned around and
    asked, "What's going on?"
    "It's... I just can't forgive him for running off to a younger woman back on Green
    Noah!"
    Emma gasped. She hadn't been with this outfit long, but she could figure out who he was
    talking about. "I... I had no idea."
    "No, you didn't," Camille retorted over his shoulder. "You've got no appreciation for
    just how quickly a home can be wrecked." And with that, he took hold of a grab bar heading
    back towards the hangar.
    Emma was just about to call out to Camille again when Reccoa Rondo stopped her with a
    raised hand. "He'll be all right," she said. "Just so long as he stays frosty." And with
    that, Reccoa entered the airlock that seperated the hangar from the rest of the ship and
    closed the hatch behind her.
    The general quarters alarm sounded, drowning out any thoughts Emma might have had.
    "General quarters! All hands man your battle stations! Remaining pilots to the hangar on the
    double! MAGNUM LAUNCH!"
    Unfortunately for Emma, her Gundam MkII was in pieces at the moment. And even if it
    wasn't, Quattro probably wouldn't let her sortie anyway. For a moment, she wished the Titans
    patch on her left arm was attached to the pressure suit by velcro so she could rip it off,
    grind it under her heel, and kick it into some dark corner. It was just as well that the
    device was part of the suit's outer layer; she was not normally given to such histrionics
    anyway. She sighed and headed up to the bridge.
    Three other suits soon joined in the on-again, off-again chase, one of them a brilliant
    gold in color. They soon linked up with Jay and Sleggar. "Taking the Heavy Threepio out for a
    spin, Captain?" Jay asked.
    Quattro went on as if he hadn't heard the nickname. "Of course. Its accel curve is
    comparable to that of the Gundam MkII."
    "I'll take the Rick Dias's more forgiving flight characteristics and heavier armor any
    day," Apolli said.
    "You sure we need all this just to round up one MS?" Roberto asked.
    "We're moving up the timetable for the strike. Be careful, all of you. He's not the
    pencil-pushing rear-echelon engineer we took him for, and this gold paint job will draw
    fire."
    "Captain," answered Sleggar with a trace of a smile, "with all due respect, if I had
    wanted 'careful', I'd have signed on with Colony Management."
    Jay tried to told a snicker in.
    "Settle down, all of you. This is where it's going to happen. Sleggar, you head him
    off. Apolli, Roberto, you come in through the basement. Jay, you and I are going to see about
    fixing his leaky roof. He just might get rained on if this continues."
    "I've got several contacts!" the emmissions officer aboard Alexandria said. "Unknown
    configuration."
    "Do we have any flights out in that region?" Jamican asked. He knew for sure that their
    guests didn't have any flights out there. It was all part of the arrangement for the
    rendevous.
    "Negative, sir," the airboss answered.
    "Then those are bogeys," Jamican answered. He pointed to the airboss. "Flight ops, I
    want your first MS wing up on the double; magnum launch! Advise the pilots to keep clear of
    our fire lanes!" He indicated the weapons officer next. "Weps, I want all forward batteries
    firing on that area in launch plus 30 seconds, saturation pattern Delta! EMCON, disperse
    Minovsky particles, combat density!"
    Two yellow beams bracketed Franklin's Rick Dias, one on either side. "Not this again,"
    he muttered as he whirled around again, only to find no targets waiting for him to shoot at
    them.
    The beams returned, this time from directly below him. He readied the Rick Dias's
    bazooka and sent a HEAT round at the two other Rick Diases coming from below, which caused
    them to scatter.
    This, in turn, left him blissfully unaware of both Huckevine MkII and Type 100 coming
    in from above until said Huckevine clamped onto him from behind and the Type 100 filled his
    forward view. "Let me go, dammit!" he shouted.
    The AEUG icon spun slowly in his comms window, the way it did for a voice-only
    transmission. "End of the line," said Quattro's voice over the speaker.
    Inside the Type 100, Quattro's eyes focused on infinity for a split-second. "Jay!" he
    barked, pressing against the clinch just as the barrage from Alexandria arrived.
    Hanging on to an actively-struggling mobile suit was hard enough without a good grip.
    But trying to do that with a suit that one didn't want to damage while evading a destroyer's
    barrage coming from behind was nigh-impossible. Primarily because the real worry lay not in
    the beam shot with Jay Denton's name on it, but the scores of beams simply labelled
    "occupant".
    [I believe we found Alexandria,] Cortana sent. [Recommend immediate evasive act--]
    A beam caught the Huckevine MkII in the back of the right leg, causing the Gravity Wall
    to flare brightly before it punched through. The beam etched an ugly scar across the calf and
    started a reaction mass leak, which made the Huckevine lose its grip and involuntarily drift
    away from its quarry.
    [Careful!] sent Cortana. [There's two of us in here, remember?]
    Franklin saw his opportunity and took it, kicking the Type 100 away and boosting clear
    in the confusion.
    [Where did those come from?] Jay asked.
    [Scanning... I've got positive IDs on Alexandria, Bosnia... and there's a
    Zanzibar-class cruiser in the area.]
    "What the devil is a Zanzibar-class cruiser doing out there?" Bright Noah asked as he
    looked over the tactical plot.
    "Hard to say, sir," Torres answered. "The Minovsky screen came down like a damned
    anvil. We're lucky to get -this- much."
    "Any sign that it might have been boarded?"
    "Negative, sir."
    "They should already be firing on that Zanzibar, then," Bright mused. "It would be too
    far out of character for the Titans if they weren't."
    "Sir, the only fire I'm picking up from Alexandria or Bosnia is at our fightercraft."
    Bright didn't like this tactical picture one bit. The distinct lack of any fire on that
    Zeon ship from the flagship of the Titans nagged at the back of his mind, but now was not the
    time to explore that further. "Any sign of Borneo?" he asked.
    "Negative."
    "Mr. Saegusa, take us in and engage Alexandria at long range. Keep your eyes open, Mr.
    Torres. Borneo could try to outflank us. Bring up our Minovsky screen, signal Mont Blanc to
    follow us in, and signal Radish to cover our flanks. This is it, gentlemen."
    [That's a Zeon ship, isn't it?] Jay wondered over the L2 interface channel.
    [Yes, and the Minovsky screen just settled in.] Cortana rested her chin on her left
    fist. [I think I've got enough of the Zanzibar's emmission signature to make an
    identification. Analyzing...] Her icon glowed brighter as she ran her tests.
    After a few moments, Cortana dropped her hand back to her hip. [I've got an IFF
    confirmation! That Zanzibar is the PZC Lili Marlene!]
    "Verdammt," Cima Garahau hissed. "They told us this area was secure!" She stomped back
    to her center seat on the bridge of Lili Marlene, which was much better upholstered than most
    (as it had a white tiger skin rug draped over it), and sat down in a huff.
    "No matter," she muttered as she crossed her legs. "By now, the landings at Australia
    and South Atalia will have already begun." She raised her voice. "Helm, take us away from
    this place."
    "Zanzibar cruiser disengaging," Torres reported.
    "Very well," Bright noted, his mind firmly focused on the battle, and the Titans ships
    that could still pound his fleet into scrap. "Mr. Saegusa, evasive pattern Green 88. Keep up
    the counterbattery fire on Alexandria."
    "Aye, sir."
    Never in his wildest dreams did Franklin Vidan believe that he would be actually flying
    into battle. But now that he was in a battle, he could not imagine feeling more alive at any
    previous point in his life. An electric thrill coursed through his soul -- after all, he had
    not only escaped that loudmouthed punk who drove the Personal Trooper, but the Yugoes' own
    vaunted Captain Bajina as well! This was better than sex, even with an incredible lay like
    Margarita. For some strange reason, his mind called up a picture of her, her wavy red hair
    spilling down her shoulders over her perfect breasts as she lay back upon the bed invitingly.
    He resolved to have a celebratory night with her as soon as he got back to the Alexandria and
    from there, home.
    Fortune favors the bold, he thought as a lustful smile creased his features, his mind
    already savoring the treat to come.
    # Staind "For You" _Break The Cycle_
    Camille turned and zapped a Hizack charging towards him with his beam rifle. The Hizack
    drifted away, arcing electricity as he guided his Gundam MkII back into the fray. Where is
    he? he inwardly wondered. Damn him, damn Margarita, damn this whole rotten situation to hell!
    Please, God, let me find him...
    Just then, his targetting computer pinged, pointing out a scarlet Rick Dias, flying
    straight and level.
    "God is very quick to respond these days, Hauptmann!" he radioed as he pounced on the
    Rick Dias and tried to grapple it.
    "Camille?!" Franklin gasped as he kicked away the Gundam MkII and drew his beam pistol.
    The white MS lit its verniers to right itself before bringing its beam rifle to bear on
    the Rick Dias. Both suits held that position, the model of a modern standoff.
    "So you're finally going to shoot your old man," Franklin radioed as Camille fought to
    get his breathing under control and get his target reticle set on the Rick Dias.
    "Camille, what gives?" asked Jay softly as he brought his Huckevine MkII into the
    vicinity of the standoff.
    "I never raised any son of mine to point a gun at his own father!" spat Franklin over
    the radio link.
    You obtuse son of a--, thought Jay. Somewhere inside him, something finally gave way.
    "That sad fact of life is the ONLY reason he hasn't pulled the trigger yet!" he interjected.
    "Look, Frankie, your son is going through a difficult time in his life right now, and could
    use just a little fucking compassion! And even -with- the fact that a Zeon ship was spotted
    with Alexandria, you're -still- continuing this farce! A hundred thousand sperm, and -you-
    were the fastest?!"
    Franklin glowered. Not even Hilda spoke to him this way, let alone Camille! "You're
    wrong, buddy," he barked. "I don't have a son. Not anymore. Not after he went over to the
    enemy."
    Cortana sighed. [That was... diplomatic of you,] she noted with some degree of sarcasm.
    [I'm trying, but this motherfucker's pushing all my hot buttons.] "Look," he said.
    "Can't you see he still cares about you, especially when you don't deserve it? There is a way
    out, away from that bastard Bosque Ohm! Get back to the Ahgama if you want to live, because
    if you stay out here, somebody's going to put a beam into your ass."
    "Not an option, son," Franklin replied as he pumped the beam pistol's trigger. "None of
    you understand -my- situation!"
    If I was your son, I wouldn't know who to shoot first, Jay thought as Camille danced
    away from the steady barrage of beam shots before taking one on his shield, getting knocked
    back several meters. You, or myself.
    "I've done everything I was supposed to do as a father!" Franklin raved. "And this is
    the thanks I get?!" A not-entirely-stable grin creased his face. "To hell with the Gundam
    MkII! I've already got my next mobile suit project in mind!"
    Jay's eyes narrowed. This had gone on long enough. [Target subsystem, Cortana,] he
    sent, all business. [Right shoulder.]
    As the Huckevine MkII raised its Subach to fire, Franklin's further pulls of the
    trigger were rewarded with an electronic raspberry. He had run the beam pistol's e-clip dry.
    He frantically discarded it and was in the process of breaking out the bazooka when Camille
    saw his opening and charged.
    Jay pulled his Subach back up to high port. Dammit, Camille! he thought darkly.
    Another shot came from over Camille's left shoulder, hitting center mass on the Rick
    Dias. Electricity arced from smashed circuitry and reactor plasma leaked from the wound as
    the Rick Dias began to drift. Camille had seen mobile suits go down before. He'd certainly
    destroyed a few himself. But he had never seen a mobile suit go down from a shot that nobody
    in the immediate vicinity had fired. He just sat there, dumbfounded, trying to parse the
    situation his eyes were showing him.
    Jay, on the other hand, had seen this phenomenon before, and his practiced eye could
    tell that the Rick Dias's wound was mortal. Come on, you fool, he thought, get out! You can't
    save it!
    The Minovsky interference distorted the incoming radio transmission, but the tone and
    cadence were one hundred percent of the man Jay had taken to calling "The Major": "Camille,
    Jay, remember where you are. This is a battlefield. Hesitate, and you -will- be lost."
    Meanwhile, back at the Rick Dias wreck, the fact that it was doomed finally forced its
    way into Franklin Vidan's brain. He had opened the hatch and was scrambling out, hoping to
    get the survival bubble inflated and far enough away from the suit before the reactor let go.
    He almost made it.
    A jagged piece of metal the size of a serving tray impaled him through his midsection,
    leaving the part that poked out red with blood. He drifted away, aspirating blood before
    finally giving up the ghost fifteen seconds later.
    Camille pounded his fists hard against the VDU housing, his eyes clenched tightly shut
    as if not seeing it could make it all have been some kind of bad dream. "You--" he cried.
    "Stupid asshole," Jay muttered. "What's left?"
    [Capricorn Wing are the six Marasais moving to intercept our squadron. Aquarius One is
    the sole Gundam MkII that's not ours. There was a Pisces Wing, but they were Hizacks and got
    taken out quickly.]
    While she was listing off targets, Cortana was curious as to who could have fired that
    fatal beam shot. She took the angle that the shot had arrived at, and factored in the
    relative positions of each of the mechs at the scene. She was only able to get an 36%
    probability that the shooter was the Type 100, but it was the most likely choice.
    Cortana spent the next five processor cycles running this information through her
    ethics subroutines, not comprehending what she had just seen. Why would he have shot into
    that fight?
    Of course! That was the only way he could've saved Camille. He was obviously not
    willing to fight his own father.
    Was Char Aznable a monster? Or was he doing what he needed to do to protect his own
    people? Maybe a little of both. She paused to reflect a little on the deaths of Camille's
    parents. It made for an intriguing study in contrasts; particularly the sometimes-subtle
    difference between warfare and murder.
    There would be plenty of time to explore that further. For now, there was a battle. And
    Jay Denton needed her.
    "Captain," Torres said. "The Mont Blanc."
    Bright brought up a close-up of the stricken Salamis cruiser on his personal viewer.
    Through the lines caused by Minovsky interference, he could see explosions wrack the warship,
    and on some decks, the telltale glows of fires burning out of control. A scratchy radio
    transmission played through the bridge speakers: "Fight on --hgama, we'r- d-ne fo--!"
    Suddenly, the ion thrusters glowed brighter as the ship clawed through space on its
    last legs, straight for the Titans' wall of battle.
    Bright hit his own comm button. "Captain Kitano, what are you doing? Mont Blanc, please
    respond!"
    Bright's calls went unanswered as Mont Blanc hurtled unerringly toward Bosnia, fresh
    explosions blossoming as the doomed warship picked up speed. Bosnia's gunners fired
    frantically, hoping to avoid disaster, but there was simply too much mass to overcome. Mont
    Blanc's battered prow struck Bosnia at the foot of her flying bridge, shearing through the
    hull before both ships' reactors let go, tearing the eternal night with the sudden yet
    momentary fury of newborn stars.
    An explosion lit the black behind Alexandria, and the emmissions officer frantically
    plied his console controls to find out what it was.
    "Report!" rumbled Bosque Ohm.
    "Sir," the emmissions officer replied, his voice wavering, "we just lost the Bosnia."
    "Very well," Bosque said, giving the reply military courtesy demanded, "but what was
    that explosion just now?"
    The emmissions officer punched a couple of keys. "The Borneo, sir. She's been
    destroyed..." His voice trailed off into a whisper. "Oh no... it's the reaper!"
    "What?" Jamican asked as he peered over the officer's shoulder to look at the display.
    Silhouetted by the dying embers of Borneo's runaway reactor, there floated a black
    Gundamesque mobile suit with a smallish shield on its left vambrace, clutching what looked
    for all the world like a beam -scythe-.
    # Judas Priest "The Ripper" _Sad Wings Of Destiny_
    Duo Maxwell had found his opening at last.
    His first slash had ripped through the Borneo's bridge, killing everyone there before
    his second slash to the conning tower's base caused a catastrophic backflash in the ship's
    primary power conduit, which in turn overloaded the reactor and consumed the ship.
    The oppressors were certainly paying now, he thought as his lips pulled back from his
    teeth in a shark's grin. And, unless he missed his guess, he had found the AEUG as well. Best
    to kill two birds with one stone. It should be noted that killing the AEUG was the furthest
    thing from his mind at the moment.
    As he hurtled toward the Alexandria, he opened an audio-only channel to it. Possibly
    unwise, but it was too perfect a moment not to. "The shadow of Death has fallen upon you," he
    said in a tone that a couple of months ago would have had him fearing for his sanity if he
    had heard it coming from his mouth. "None shall see me and live!"
    "Is that a Gundam-class mobile suit?" Bright asked. "Can we confirm?"
    "The Minovsky interference is still too high to get a better look," Torres replied.
    "And there's no match in our database."
    Bright forced himself to relax in his seat. He had seen Amuro deploy with a beam
    javelin and/or a wrecking ball before, but a scythe... "It's like no other Gundam I've ever
    seen," the captain said.
    [He's locked on to Alexandria,] Cortana noted. [Should I mark him as a friendly?]
    [Why not?] Jay answered with a laugh. [The enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all!]
    [But would you let this one see your cousin Caitlin?] she replied with an impish grin.
    [Good memory.]
    [Only the best that money can buy.]
    # Prodigy (with Pop Will Eat Itself) "Their Law" _Music For The Jilted Generation_
    The situation, Lyla Mirra Laila reflected, had quickly gone from bad to worse.
    First she had lost her home ship to those damned Yugoes, and now the Borneo had gone
    down to a single mobile suit. She was having trouble picking it up on lidar, but the Mark I
    eyeball was picking it up just fine.
    Isn't that like a colonial terrorist, she thought as she lowered her reticle over the
    Gundam. Brings a scythe to a gunfight.
    The beams fractured as if they were broken water streams, the energy flowing over the
    Deathscythe like water over a duck's back before dissipating into space, leaving the mobile
    suit completely unharmed.
    Duo laughed. "You think you can stop me with just a -beam-?!"
    "Anti-beam coating!" Lyla gasped. She shook her head violently to clear it as she keyed
    her all-call. "Fall back to the Alexandria!"
    By that time, Camille had snapped out of his grief-stricken reverie and was engaged in
    squeezing off beam rifle shots at the advancing Marasais as fast as he could, while railing
    at the top of his lungs against the manifold atrocities of the Titans. He soon ran through
    every oath he could think of and started making brand new profanities, all the better to
    express his feelings for them and their masters. The Gundam MkII wasn't being a particularly
    difficult target, but the Marasais of Capricorn Wing were having trouble hitting him anyway.
    Perhaps they were shocked by the sheer brutality of his attack, or maybe it was due to the
    other AEUG mechs adding their fire to the barrage and spoiling the Titans' aim.
    The blossoming explosions of mobile suit reactors soon added to the fireworks display
    lighting the void of space, as Marasai after Marasai went up.
    As he floated in his survival bubble, waiting for a nanny ship to pick him up after
    having seen his Marasai wing systematically destroyed, one thought kept running through
    Kirkricon Cacooler's head: "Oh no, not again."
    "Well, Amelia," he muttered, "looks like we'll have to wait a little while longer."
    Jerrid Messa looked over his display, frantically searching for one suit in particular.
    "Where is he?" he muttered. With all the Minovsky interference and the flashes of gunfire
    stealing his night vision, he had trouble finding his quarry. He was just about to turn
    toward the main thrust of the assault when he heard an all-too-familiar voice over his radio.
    Looking over, he saw a white mobile suit in the process of zapping the Marasais of Apollo
    Wing.
    "New paint job," he noted as he squeezed off a shot from his beam rifle and dove in to
    engage, "same old girly-boy driving it."
    "Jerrid?" Camille asked, barely getting his shield up in time to block the beam rifle
    shot. He took a sharp breath as he surveyed the damage. That shot nearly blew my shield in
    half! "I always knew the Titans were up to no good, but I never thought they'd -ally- with
    the Zeeks!"
    Jerrid forced a laugh. "You don't know anything at all, do ya? You've been living on
    borrowed time ever since Gripps 2! Now go to hell!"
    Camille brought his beam rifle up once again and tagged Jerrid's Gundam MkII in the
    right hip. "Bad timing, fuckhead," he cried. "REALLY BAD!"
    "Blue Leader reports Titans fightercraft wings reduced to 20% effectiveness," Lou
    Caesar reported. Blue Wing were orphans of the Mont Blanc, fighting alongside Ahgama's MS
    complement.
    "Alexandria's still fighting, sir," Masanobu Saegusa reported from his weapons station.
    "Very well," replied Bright. Come on, Colonel, he thought. Surely even you can see that
    your position is untenable...
    [Typical big-gun ship captain,] Cortana observed. [They've lost their MS complement,
    but still think they can win the day. We should show them who they're dealing with.]
    It was easy enough to feel invincible inside the Huckevine MkII, Jay reflected,
    especially with the Gravity Wall. But if the incident with the barrage at the start of this
    engagement had taught him anything, it was that nothing could be further from the truth. One
    solid hit from Alexandria's primary cannon batteries would be enough to reduce him to a pile
    of scrap, Gravity Wall notwithstanding.
    He had joked back in high school that he liked anything fast enough to do something
    stupid in. As he juked it through a missile spread, he figured the Huckevine MkII was more
    than sufficient for the job. And charging into the teeth of a destroyer's guns was stupid
    bordering on suicidal.
    But if one could get through the point defenses of a destroyer, then the bridge crew
    were very much vulnerable. And with the Major and the Black Mech of Mystery picking off
    turrets and keeping Dragon Lady occupied, Jay figured his chances of achieving this were
    better than average. He blasted a point-defense turret mounted over the hangar door away as
    he slipped between the two big turrets flanking the launch deck, getting into the dead zone
    where they couldn't be turned to face him.
    # (1:57 in music cue)
    "Pardon me," Jay said as he planted his left hand actuator below the klaster of
    Alexandria's bridge windows, "but do you have any cheap yellow mustard?"
    He scanned the faces of each of the men and women on Alexandria's bridge, reading the
    fear in their eyes. One direct hit with either the Subach PR-7 or the Chakram Shooter, and
    they would drink vacuum.
    The Jay Denton that existed shortly after the Marathon went down would have had no
    problem in sending them all to Hell. But there was the example of Emma Sheen to consider --
    ordinary people doing what they felt would change the world for the better. Not everybody on
    that bridge deserved to die for their leaders' fear and ignorance. "Which one of you...
    people," Jay said, leaving off what he really wanted to say ("cum-guzzling unclefuckers") out
    of deference to mixed company as he dropped his veneer of bonhomie, "is Bosque Ohm?"
    The goggled husky fellow in the red field cap replied, "I am Colonel Bosque Ohm. Whom
    do I have the -honor- of addressing?"
    "Jay Denton. Sole survivor of the EMS Marathon, which was not officially destroyed by
    people under your command. (They're unofficially very sorry, and they'll never do it again,
    officially or otherwise.) Paramour to a passenger murdered aboard the Marathon, whose death
    was, of course, unofficial. But then, you wouldn't officially know anything about that, would
    you, you unscrupluous, sadistic, murdering jackass?! There, now you can convict me for
    revealing official secrets! And I don't mean the fate of the Marathon!"
    He could already see Bosque turning a faint shade of purple. No need to leave the job
    half done. "I want to kill you so badly I can hardly contain myself. But if getting through
    your point defense was this easy, I figure I can take you any time I want. Think about -that-
    the next time you're in some dark corner of colonized space.
    "Oh, and one last thing: Tell your pit bull Dannigan I will have my revenge, in this
    life or the next."
    [That ought to do it,] Cortana sent. [Thanks very much, Jay.]
    "WEPS!" Bosque roared. "TAKE THAT OUT OF MY SKY!"
    The second Jay planted the Huckevine's hand below the bridge windows, Cortana sprung
    into action. She piggybacked into Alexandria's system through the contact channel Jay had
    made, and slipped into the hangar archives. Routing the queries through the dock for the
    chief mechanic's personal Eyes-Only Pad, she downloaded the blueprints, schematics, and field
    manuals for the Gundam MkII. While that download was progressing, she remembered how the
    Titans were willing to take certain liberties with people's families.
    Therefore, certain precautions were necessary.
    Cortana then hitched a ride on a datastream leading to the CPU. There was just one last
    thing to do, and if Bosque Ohm had any decency, it wouldn't even be noticeable at all. Then
    again, she had little faith in human decency, especially from the Titans. A data sniffer
    here, and a set of instructions there, and her work was done. She spent the rest of the time
    she'd allotted herself for this exercise constructing and concealing a back-door into the
    system. One never knows when it might come in handy.
    [That ought to do it,] she sent to Jay once she disconnected her terminal session.
    [Thanks very much, Jay.] As she settled back into the groove of uptime aboard the Huckevine
    MkII, a thought crossed her mind.
    It's -cool- to be an AI.
    Quattro swore in German as his bazooka round left a scorch mark on the Alexandria, but
    failed to noticeably damage it. "That ship must have HEAT-resistant armor," he sent over the
    AEUG command frequency. "I'm going to need my mega-launcher."
    "Copy that, Major," Lou Caesar replied. "Sending it out to you now."
    A largish gun pod, almost as long as the Core Booster, was moved out onto a catapult
    and launched. As the Heavy Threepio caught it, it began to unfold in ways ordinary gun pods
    do not. The barrel extended as handgrips on either side swung into position. A stirrup swung
    down, which the golden mech put its left foot into. A shoulder yoke much like the ones on
    WWII-era shipboard anti-aircraft guns extended as well, locking into place.
    Energy began to build in the charging coils as Quattro fought to keep his reticle
    steady on Alexandria's flying bridge. After a moment, the golden pip at its center blinked
    rapidly, and he pulled the trigger.
    A cerulean parabola several kilometers long leapt out from the barrel of the gun and
    struck the aft part of the raised center section, narrowly missing the bridge windows. When
    the massive bolt had faded, the only damage that could be seen were scorch marks and a large
    crack in the armored hull's outer layer.
    "Verdammt," Quattro muttered. His eyes darted toward a mobile suit his targeting
    computer had bracketed in red. And it doesn't look like my dance partner's about to wait
    until this recharges, he thought ruefully as he disengaged the Heavy Threepio from the
    launcher.
    Jerrid snap-rolled out of the way of a beam rifle shot. "You're not the only one who
    knows some shit!" he shouted.
    Camille lined up a shot on the black Gundam MkII's cockpit, only to be rewarded with an
    electronic blat of his own. Damn! he silently cursed. I used up the whole charge on those
    Marasais! He hit his verniers as another beam shot by, and started fumbling for his bazooka.
    Without even looking to see what type of round was in the chamber, he sighted and squeezed
    the trigger.
    Fifteen meters from Jerrid's Gundam, the shell shattered into several hundred
    fragments, much like an oversized shotgun shell. The fragments flensed armor from the Gundam,
    with a few going into the beam rifle, rendering it useless. Jerrid growled as he tossed it
    away and broke out his beam saber. As if on some unseen cue, Camille drew his own beam saber
    and charged Jerrid. The two suits streaked by, sabers clashing for several seconds before
    they finished with their sabers at full extension, as if they had struck at the same time and
    completed their follow-through.
    "I got you, bitch!" growled Jerrid.
    "So did I," Camille intoned in response.
    Camille had slashed while coming down from a high angle, so Jerrid's stroke had only
    cut an ugly scar into his right leg, freezing the knee actuator and wrecking the verniers
    located there. His answering stroke, on the other hand, was more telling. That one had caught
    the black Gundam MkII just under its right armpit, severing power conduits and nicking the
    reactor shielding.
    Jerrid's VDU told the whole story as the master alarm went off and his controls stopped
    responding. He stared at it in much the same way as a gambler with all his chips in the pot
    stares at a royal flush in spades in anybody's hand but his own. When he spoke, his voice was
    quiet. "Power transfer failure?"
    Camille could scarcely believe it. He brought his Gundam around, saying "It's over for
    you! Even when you've got the numbers, you still can't get it right."
    "You got me right where you want me," Jerrid spat. "Go on and kill me now!"
    Camille drew his beam saber and raised it for the fatal thrust. As he did so, he
    thought of his dead mother, murdered in cold blood. The next thing he thought of surprised
    him, because it was something Jay had told him the last time he and Jerrid had met.
    ("Don't mind him. He's a joke. That's all he is.")
    If I do it now and end him, he thought, am I any better than -he- is?
    "What are you waiting for, chicken-shit?" Jerrid asked as his displays flickered in
    time to his rapidly draining power reserves. "Christmas?"
    Camille drew his beam saber back in a stabbing motion, with his off hand on the pommel,
    and Jerrid closed his eyes involuntarily. When the Titan opened his eyes again, he saw his
    VirtuaCockpit display show the rich blue that had replaced static as a sign of no signal
    since before the Diaspora. Numbly, he punched up a wireframe damage display on his VDU. The
    black Gundam had been impaled, yes, but through the head as opposed to through the cockpit.
    Just then, an AEUG icon began to rotate slowly in his comm window.
    "You're not -worth- killing!" And with that, Camille turned his Gundam toward the
    fighting and flew away.
    Jerrid stared straight ahead, his expression seemingly unchanged from his earlier
    shock, but inside it was as if somebody had stabbed him right in the heart.
    Next time, he silently vowed, we'll see who's worth killing. And if it's you that goes
    down, I won't fucking hesitate, Girly-Boy.
    Lyla barely pulled her Galbaldy out of the way of the Deathscythe's shield, which had
    suddenly sprouted blades and launched after her. That was too close!
    Those that flew with her spoke of her almost superhuman ability to evade incoming fire.
    It was good enough to have a black-suited team of researchers come down to Luna Two one day,
    only to find no Newtype potential in her whatsoever. The reality was that Lyla was a
    practioner of iaido, and a serious student of the spiritual aspects of martial arts. Which,
    in turn, had cultivated the extrasensory awareness of one's immediate surroundings that the
    ancient samurai called zanshin.
    In her youth, she took a lot of ribbing for her Zen-like approach to MS combat, as
    evidenced in her seemingly baffling advice to new pilots to reach out and feel an enemy's
    hostile intent. None could say it didn't work for her, though -- she had 15 confirmed pirate
    kills to her credit before this week.
    None of which seemed to amount to so much as a hill of beans against the AEUG, but the
    fact that she had lasted this long spoke volumes about her prowess.
    "Is she reading his moves?" Jay wondered as the Galbaldy nimbly evaded another blast
    from the golden suit's beam rifle.
    "I could calculate the probability of that, if you like," Cortana said.
    Jay shook his head. "Thank you, no." There has got to be -something- I could do to
    help... wait a second. His crooked smile returned for the first time since the incident with
    the capsule.
    "Why don't you read -this-, Dragon Lady?" he asked as he briefed his Chakram Shooter on
    a mission and scrambled it.
    Lyla pulled back on the control sticks as a spinning disk on a cable shot right at her,
    sawing clean through her beam rifle just forward of the trigger guard. Without thinking, she
    kicked in her back thrusters, boosting straight up before the chakram could wind around her
    suit. As she discarded the stub of her ruined beam rifle, one alarming thought ran through
    her mind:
    His attack hadn't even disturbed her zanshin! Not one ripple!
    "Fine," she grunted as she centered herself. "Let's see if that trick yo-yo of yours
    works in close!"
    She drew her beam saber and rushed in for the attack, only to have her saber blocked by
    another beam saber, wielded by the golden MS. A man's voice broke in on her radio. "May I cut
    in?" he asked.
    [They just don't give up, don't they?] asked Jay as the beam saber duel continued
    behind him.
    [That crack in the central tower,] Cortana sent, indicating said crack in a zoom window
    on the Huckevine MkII's VirtuaCockpit display with a hollow orange octagon. [Try aiming
    there! I recommend your Chakram Shooter.]
    [Not like I'd use anything else. If that big gun couldn't seriously damage it, I -know-
    the Subach doesn't have a chance.] Jay danced out of the way of a rolling burst from a
    phalanx turret before letting the chakram fly, sending it unerringly into the crack left by
    the mega-launcher.
    He couldn't have anticipated the explosion that bloomed forth from the crack after he
    retracted the weapon. Alexandria began to list to port as fire and escaping atmosphere leaked
    out like blood from an arterial wound.
    Jay regained control after being blown back several hundred meters by the force of the
    explosion. The Gravity Wall had kicked in right when he needed it, keeping the Huckevine from
    being nicely toasted or worse. "Whoa," he breathed.
    Bosque Ohm picked himself off of the deck where he had fallen. "Damage report!" he
    barked.
    "Primary and secondary weapons controls are out! Primary sensors are out! We're sitting
    ducks out here, sir!"
    Bosque's mind raced as he considered his options. Sure, he could go out in a blaze of
    glory, but there was so much left unfinished. And there was little to be gained from a heroic
    last stand under these circumstances.
    "Signal the retreat," he said through clenched teeth. The idea of running from a fight
    with the Yugoes made him want to howl with rage, but there was little he could do half-blind
    with his weapon systems offline.
    Jerrid pounded the bulkhead of the nanny ship with his fist as the flares announcing
    the retreat went off. "Dammit!" he spat. I was so close to regaining my honor...
    "We'll get him next time," Kirkricon said.
    "Easy for you to say," muttered Jerrid in reply.
    "Red Leader to Ahgama," Quattro's voice said over the audio channel. "Alexandria is
    disengaging."
    "Congratulations on your victory, pilots," Brex Forra said once the celebrations from
    the bridge crews had died down.
    "With all due respect, sir," Bright replied over a tight-beam channel to Radish, "this
    was no victory. All we did was accomplish our mission objectives. Too many people died for it
    to be called a victory."
    Brex nodded sadly. "-One- death is too many."
    "Ahgama," the other black Gundam radioed, "this is Forseti One, requesting permission
    to land."
    Torres looked up questioningly at Bright, who nodded with a bemused grin. "Roger,
    Forseti One," he said as he turned back to his console. "You are cleared to enter our landing
    pattern."
    "Copy that. Forseti One out." Duo sighed wistfully as he regarded the retreating speck
    of the Titans' destroyer. "One black mark on an otherwise perfect record," he mused.
    "So this is that mystery Gundam," Astonage said, none the worse for having undergone an
    unscheduled EVA. "Configuration looks a little weird, though."
    "I think this is the first Gundam I've ever seen fully optimized for close combat," Jay
    noted as he looked up at it. "Doesn't even have a rifle."
    "It hardly matters if your ECM suite's good enough to let you get in close," the new
    arrival said as he dismounted from his Gundam. He was about as tall as Camille, with large
    dark blue eyes, a perpetually cheerful expression, and long brown hair (the likes of which
    most women would gladly kill just to have) tied in a simple braid that extended down his
    back. He wore a black shirt with a cleric collar and the sleeves rolled up past the elbows.
    Black jodphurs and boots completed this ensemble.
    "You must be the pilot," Astonage said.
    The guy nodded. "Duo Maxwell," he said, introducing himself. "What do you think of the
    Gundam Deathscythe?"
    "Quirky," Jay said. "Then again, I like quirky. Jay Denton."
    Just then, Raynor shouted something over towards the small knot of people, making
    himself heard over the bustle of the hangar. "HEY, YOU!" He pointed to Duo. "CAPTAIN WANTS TO
    SEE YOU ON THE BRIDGE IN FIFTEEN MIKES!"
    "OK!" Duo answered. "I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!"
    "I didn't know Anaheim made them like this," Astonage said.
    "That's because Anaheim -didn't- make this thing," Duo replied.
    "Really?" Astonage asked. "Then where am I supposed to get parts from?"
    "Oh, don't bother with that."
    "I -am- the chief mechanic on this ship. It's my job to bother with such things."
    "Careful!" Duo said as Astonage turned back to check maintenance readings on the
    Deathscythe. "These self-destruct devices are twitchy things," he remarked with as much ease
    as changing the subject at a dinner conversation.
    Astonage did a double take. "What?!"
    Duo shrugged. "I mean, you could go poking around in there and accidentally arm it. And
    I'm the only one here who knows how to disarm it in case you do. Don't get me wrong, it's not
    that I don't want any help working on my Gundam, I just don't want to see the hangar gutted
    by the explosion if it does go off. It's standard equipment in order to avoid capture." He
    patted Astonage's shoulder in a faintly patronizing manner as he walked off. "Don't take it
    so hard, Chief. I'm used to doing my own tech work anyway."
    Astonage waited until Duo left the hangar before storming back to his office -- well,
    as much as one can storm in microgravity, at any rate -- and firing off the Zeta Gundam
    concept picture to his Z Project contact at Anaheim Electronics.
    "We'll just see which project gets the upper hand," he muttered as he sent the email.
    He, for one, did not want to be servicing flying bombs anytime soon.
    Jamican Dannigan regarded the two people at attention in front of his office desk with
    a steely glare. "Lieutenant Messa," he said, "80% of our MS complement has been destroyed.
    You've had two suits shot out from under you in as many days. Disgraceful." He indicated the
    other person with a wave of his hand. "At least Hauptmann Laila brought her suit back, which
    is why we brought her aboard."
    The survivors from Bosnia had been made an offer from the Titans: join them at a rank
    equivalent to their EFN/L2DC rank; but with regard to the chain of command in joint service
    operations, benefits, and pay, be treated as the next higher grade. Few had refused. The
    survivors, for the most part, had their own scores to settle with the AEUG.
    "Thank you, sir," Lyla replied. "However..."
    "Are you trying to come to Lieutenant Messa's defense?"
    "No, but with all due respect, Commander, I think we're overlooking something here."
    Jamican leaned back in his seat, resting his chin in one hand. "And what might that
    be?"
    "Ahgama is built much the same way as the original White Base was," she said. "It only
    -looks- defenseless. But once you get close, there's plenty of pop-up turrets, not to mention
    a large MS capacity. Also, whoever drives their Gundam MkII fights in a very unorthodox
    style. It's the same with the Huckevine MkII, and the other black Gundam is unorthodox by its
    very nature."
    "Where are you going with this?" asked Jamican.
    "There could also be Newtypes among the Ahgama's MS complement."
    Jamican glowered as he sat back upright. "Don't be ridiculous, Hauptmann! Newtypes are
    nothing more than an demagogue's pipe dream! I do not want to hear any more talk about
    Newtypes. Am I clear on this?"
    Lyla's eyes narrowed, and it was all she could do to maintain her bearing and keep her
    voice level. "Yes. Sir."
    Bosque Ohm sat in his wardroom, illuminated only by the desk lamp. He was a passionate
    man, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it beneath the prescribed icy mien of self-
    control. Part of what drew him to the Navy, and from there to the Titans, was the awe
    battleship captains commanded (even though the heaviest ships were being incongrously called
    "destroyers"), as well as the adrenaline rush when such firepower was directed at those
    foolish enough to oppose them. He never gave much thought until this moment as to how heavily
    he relied on that awe, nor how infuriated he got when the enemy refused to be intimidated by
    it.
    He was not a man accustomed to fearing for his life. But when that EOT mech parked
    itself outside his bridge, the adrenaline rush had been swept away to be replaced by a very
    real fear. It had been several years since he felt that fear, except this time, there was no
    pain that followed it. Only the shame of leaving a task unfinished, which cut worse than any
    knife.
    Jay Denton and Camille Vidan were dead men. Oh yes. But it would have to wait until the
    time was right, and in the meantime, since Denton had linked himself to Vidan, so must he
    share in his punishment.
    The beginnings of an ugly little smile began to crease his features as he flipped up
    his terminal screen and began to type out an information request. It was time to instruct
    this Denton character in the finer points of loss and pain. And while he was at it, why not
    punish Lieutenant Sheen for her insolence as well...
    The request travelled from Bosque's terminal to the central computer, and from there to
    the Federation's public information database. The database was queried, and returned the
    addresses for the households of both Morgan Denton and Elliott Sheen. That information was
    then sent back to Alexandria, where it went into the central computer core. On its way there,
    the data passed through a data sniffer, which recognized Morgan Denton's name.
    Which, in turn, tripped the logic bomb Cortana had installed in the ship's computer
    core. First, all power to the terminals, lighting, and servers cut out. Sensing this, the
    master server's uninterruptible power supply kicked in. That allowed the logic bomb to do the
    rest of its work sight unseen, not only overwriting all Gundam MkII schematics and pilot
    interface data files aboard Alexandria in Pig Latin, but expunging all collected public
    records (which just happened to include the recent additions regarding the households of Mr.
    & Mrs. Elliott Sheen and Mr. Morgan Denton) from the ship's network as well. It also embedded
    a small virus that would change the street addresses on any further downloads of the same
    information to those of well-known landmarks. Effectively, this meant that Elliott Sheen and
    Morgan Denton respectively lived at Wrigley Field and Copernicus Peace Park as far as the
    Titans' database was concerned. And when that was finished, it threw the entire server
    cluster into thorough hardware diagnostics, ensuring that any further requests would have to
    wait for CPU time.
    It was admittedly nothing more than a delaying tactic. By the time the Titans could
    obtain the real addresses, Cortana would have plenty of time to implement the next stage of
    her contingency plan. They may have gotten both of Camille's parents, but she didn't have to
    stand for it.
    Aside from the altered and missing data, the only clue anyone aboard Alexandria had of
    Cortana's machinations came in the form of an email that the bomb had been set up to deliver
    fifteen minutes from the moment the power went out:
    From: cortana@titans.mil (I'm everywhere!)
    To: bosque.ohm@titans.mil
    CC: jamican.dannigan@titans.mil
    Subject: I'm Jesus With A Photon Rifle (And You're All Going To Hell)
    Next time, we get rough.
    The meeting on Ahgama's bridge passed by in a blur for Jay. He didn't know who this
    "Wong Lee" character that Duo had mentioned was, but apparently the name manipulated more
    than a few holograms for Brex Forra. The general had promptly arranged for a berth for Duo
    before attending to the business of splitting off Ahgama from the task force.
    It was the second time he had ever heard the Major being called "Oberst". And if he
    remembered correctly, Oberst was what the Zeeks called their colonels. Maybe there was
    something to the rumors after all.
    For his part, the Major favored Duo with a plastic smile and tapped the Federation
    field captain's collar tab on his vest with a finger.
    Jim Raynor leaned over to Jay and whispered, "Be glad he's on your side. I wouldn't
    want him for an enemy."
    Jay closed his eyes and cursed silently. He let his thoughts get too loud again. "But
    why all the secrecy?" he whispered back.
    "People change, Jay. Some merely want to forget their past." And with that, Raynor was
    silent for the rest of the meeting.
    At length, the meeting had let out, and Jay couldn't help but note that Camille was
    merely going through the motions of life aboard Ahgama. No doubt he was still reeling from
    the shock of being disowned and orphaned all on the same day. On their way to the rec room,
    Jay took some time to talk to Duo, and learned a few interesting things.
    First, Duo was actually 15, instead of 17 like Jay had first thought. Which put him
    closer to Caitlin's own age of 14, but introducing Duo to her would have to wait for Jay to
    get to know him better.
    Second, Duo used to be a nomad junker before finding the Deathscythe. Where he was from
    exactly, he didn't say, but Jay figured he had plenty of time to find that out.
    The party soon installed themselves on the couches in the rec room and turned the
    lights down low. "It wasn't anybody's fault," Reccoa said as she leaned closer to Camille.
    "These things happen on a battlefield."
    "But still," Camille said, chewing the edge of his thumbnail absently, "I tried to
    shoot my own father..."
    "I was fixing to blow off an arm before that shot came," Jay confessed. "Father or not,
    I couldn't just sit there and watch him kill you."
    Quattro answered, "Even if none of you had shot him, somebody else would've at some
    point. It's one of the oldest laws of the battlefield: anything you do can get you killed,
    especially nothing."
    The door chime beeped. "Come in," Quattro said.
    Emma Sheen walked in and braced to attention, having changed out of her Titans uniform
    into an ensemble of a sleeveless, high-necked blue-green tunic, with matching belt and tight
    white trousers. Short gloves and high boots that matched the tunic completed the costume. The
    overall effect prompted both Jay and Duo to spontaneously leap off the couches and give her a
    heartfelt round of applause, with the latter adding a piercing wolf whistle that could be
    heard three doors down.
    Emma had to smile demurely in the face of that, momentarily forgetting her bearing.
    "Looks like a perfect fit, Lieu-- err, Leftenant Sheen," Reccoa observed.
    "Thank you," Emma replied. "I'd like to be treated as another recruit, but with the
    minders it's a little difficult."
    "Leave us," Quattro said to the marine that followed Emma in, who then did so.
    Emma then turned to the people who had stood up. "I'm sorry, but I didn't get your
    names...?"
    "Jay Denton," Jay said, for the moment wishing this wasn't the only civvie outfit he
    had. "The undertaker over there is Duo Maxwell."
    "Don't let the outfit fool you," Duo quipped. "I'm really a nice guy."
    "Nice to meet you." She turned back toward Quattro. "Major, do you still think I'm a
    spy after all this?"
    "As a matter of fact, yes. You do have family on Earth, and if the Titans were willing
    to use his family as human shields," Quattro said while nodding his head towards Camille,
    "then they could just as easily do the same to you."
    "I know," Emma said as she took a seat next to Camille, "and that's what brought me
    here. Besides, I'm a grown woman, and my parents will tell you the same thing. When this is
    all over, I believe they will be able to forgive me."
    "How nice for you," Camille noted.
    "Beg pardon?" Emma asked, momentarily taken aback by Camille's tone.
    "I meant that you had parents that actually acted like parents should. Nothing like
    mine, anyway."
    "Camille!" Emma scolded.
    "That's a hell of a thing for you to say," Reccoa added.
    "Is it?" Camille spat, his expression a mix of equal parts sadness and anger. "My
    father cheated on my mother for years! She knew all along, but rather than face it, she
    ignored it altogether and buried herself in her work. And you're telling me it's wrong to say
    such things about my family?! Is the military really that important?"
    As Camille buried his face in his hands, Jay got the distinct impression that Camille
    would remember his parents with that same mix of sadness and anger for the rest of his life.
    "All I ever wanted was an honest-to-God -family-," Camille said as he looked up. "Was
    that too much to ask for?"
    Duo leaned back in his seat. He himself had been through much worse, but seeing Camille
    have to deal with this much loss for the first time stunned him.
    "Would it help," Jay asked, "if I said I was trying to save him too?"
    Camille said nothing.
    Quattro made an understanding noise. "Some people just don't want to be saved."
    "Still doesn't mean we can't try," Jay replied.
    Camille blinked at Jay. "I don't think anybody ever talked to my father the way you
    did." He swallowed hard. "Thanks for trying," he muttered, almost as an afterthought.
    "'Salright. He was on a speeding rocket to Planet Dickhead," Jay said.
    "I know," Camille said, on the verge of tears. "But still..." He took a deep,
    shuddering breath. "Ah, fuck it!" he cried as he bolted from the couch and ran out the door.
    Duo broke the silence that settled over the gathering. "So, he was raised by the family
    dog, then?"
    Emma scowled. "Not funny, Duo."
    Duo let out a sigh. It was a feeble attempt at a joke, and he knew it. "My bad. I
    figured raising parents was hard, but..."
    A brief chuckle soon rippled across the room. It may have been gallows humor, but in
    the combat zone it was the only kind of humor to be found. And this was a situation where one
    had to laugh or go mad. The chuckle dissipated as quickly as it had came, letting silence
    reign over the gathering once more.
    Jay slowly stood up, feeling like he had lived several lifetimes over the past couple
    of days. He ambled over to the beer vending machine. "This is turning into a regular wake,"
    he said as he looked up an old friend of his by the name of Guinness, "and I, for one, have
    been driven to drink." He turned his head back to the seated group. "You want anything?"
    "No, thank you," Quattro replied. "And I don't think you should indulge, either. You
    just got back from a hard battle. With your body as low on fluids as it is, the alcohol will
    go straight to your brain."
    "That's the general idea, Major. I'd like to forget this night ever took place."
    "We'll be coming up on the planetary defense grid soon. Astonage's installing a Feddie
    IFF transponder right now, but I don't expect the subterfuge to last." He leaned down heavy
    over the back of the couch, letting his elbows sink into the cushions, lost in thought.
    First, the newly-minted Leftenant Sheen came around, and now this Duo kid comes to Ahgama,
    seemingly out of left field. Not that he was one to complain about good fortune, but Quattro
    Bajina had seen too many silver linings come with very dark clouds to blithely accept this
    turn of events at face value. He knew that in his line of work, the best way to live to see
    retirement age was to be careful and thorough. Yes, they would both merit further
    observation.
    Jay hesitated at the beer machine's card reader before swiping his credit chit through
    that of the soda machine instead, selecting a Dr. Pepper.
    "Come -on-, Jay," Duo said. "Surely you're old enough to make your own decisions."
    "Yeah," Jay replied as he popped the top on the zero-g drink can, "but I'm also old
    enough to recognize good advice when I hear it." He took a pull, closing his mouth over the
    spout and spraying soda into it. "He's right. It's not over yet."
    Duo flopped into the pilot's seat of the Deathscythe, taking a breather before plunging
    into the avionics maintenance. The post-mission bull session may have wound down in the
    fullness of time, but Duo wasn't quite ready to go to sleep just yet. There was still one
    important matter to attend to, and it had to wait until most of the tech crew were busy
    elsewhere. His fingers flew across the keypad, setting up an encrypted burst transmission for
    sending his latest journal entry to the people he had found himself working for:
    "New entry, 9 April 0187. Have rendevoused with Ahgama. Char Aznable confirmed to be on
    board. Continuing mission as planned."
    The reply came back a few minutes later on his Deathscythe's center screen: MESSAGE
    RECEIVED AND ACKNOWLEDGED.
    From: AES Ahgama
    To: (suppressed -- FWD 04.09.187.0239 via x-process 4764.53425.46 (process owner Durandal))
    SENT 04.09.0187.0235 via x-process 5473.89673.96 (process owner Cortana)
    He said, "You will hear of wars and rumors of war..."
    You were right. It's just beginning.
    # Bad Religion "Sorrow" _The Process Of Belief_
    TO BE CONTINUED...
    Acknowledgements
    ----------------
    To Banpresto and Sunrise, for creating the worlds the characters live in.
    To Zhou Tai An and Mark Neidengard, for writing the FAQs that make this series easier to
    produce for a gaijin who can't read hiragana or kanji.
    To Josh Phillips, for using a name so engagingly exotic that I just had to... you know the
    rest. (Jay: "And before you ask, Aunt Ceilidh's maiden name was not MacFarlane.")
    To David Weber, for the use of a castaway's term.
    To Jan Michael Aldeguer, sorry about all the crap that's been going down as of late.
    This phase of Kage No Senshi is dedicated to the memory of Joe Strummer and the crew of the
    space shuttle Columbia. "Do we have to come back?"
    Embellishment List v. 1.04
    --------------------------
    The FREESPACE and RED FACTION series by Volition Inc.
    STARLANCER by Digital Anvil
    The MARATHON series and HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED (soon to be a series) by Bungie Studios
    DEUS EX by Ion Storm
    STARCRAFT by Blizzard Entertainment
    MAX PAYNE by Remedy Entertainment
    INTRON DEPOT by Masamune Shirow
    SCUD: THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN by Rob Schrab
    HALO: THE FALL OF REACH by Eric Nylund
    The HONOR HARRINGTON series by David Weber
    BABYLON 5 (TV)
    SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (TV)
    THE MATRIX (movie)
    CYBERPUNK 2.0.2.0., CYBERGENERATION and MEKTON ZETA by R. Taslorian Games
    HEAVY GEAR and JOVIAN CHRONICLES by Dream Pod 9
    SHADOWRUN by FASA Corporation
    The RENEGADE LEGION series, originally by FASA Corporation
    If anybody sold you a hardcopy of this work, they ripped you off. I'm not writing this fic
    for monetary gain (it's freely available and distributable as long as the credits and
    disclaimer remain intact), nor to challenge the copyrights on enough characters, likenesses,
    and indicia to fill a major metropolitan area. Besides, I'm just this guy struggling to make
    ends meet, you know?
    Any faults with when and where certain characters fit into the general scheme of things can
    be blamed solely on the author.
    Jay Denton will return in "Rage Does Not Want To Die"


End file.
